Ex-Lapd Officer Raid in Crypto Heist, Prosecutor Says

One night last December, six men met at a home in the Hollywood Hills to plan a kidnapping, prosecutors said.

The main suspect was a 17-year-old operator of a cryptocurrency business. His detractors, authorities allege, included a felon with ties to Israel and an officer from the Los Angeles Police Department.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Jane Browstone on Friday revealed the details of this kidnapping at the bail hearing of the gangster, Gabby Ben, and former officer, Eric Halem. Both men pleaded guilty to the charges against them.

Ben, 51, has been convicted twice of fraud and deported to Israel, according to court documents. Along with the Blue Jail Jumpsuit, he wore a yarmulke and a towel around his neck. He shrugged and shook his head when Brownstone said he was “arresting the Israeli mafia.”

Hallem, 38, who appeared in court in an orange jumpsuit, served 13 years behind bars. By the time he left the Department in 2022, he had established lucrative ventures, including a luxury car rental business and an app that allowed actors to be screened remotely. He also liked the idea of ​​doing a realistic show.

At about 2 am on December 28, 2024, Halem, Ben and four other men drove two vehicles – a high BEN ROVER – to the high rise of koreatown where the victim in koreatown appeared where the court victim died.

Dressed in black, Halem, Ben and two other men dialed the access code to the victim’s apartment, Systone said. The young man was not at home, but the attackers found his girlfriend in their room and restrained her with handcuffs, according to the prosecutor.

“Everybody was armed,” Browstone said. “They said they were from the Los Angeles Police Department and executed a search warrant.”

When the intended victim returned home, the men grabbed her hand and demanded she open her crypto wallet on her phone and her religion, Brownstone said. The teenager tried to crack by showing an empty digital wallet, she said.

The intruders threatened to shoot the young man in the foot and in the chest with water if he did not hand over his crypto, turning away from the shower to carry out the threat, the prosecutor said.

It was only then that he provided the safe code that held the “robust wallet” stored in Drive Six, the brownstone told the judge. The bag contained $350,000 in Crypto, he said.

Surveillance footage shows Ben, Halem and other intruders leaving the victim’s apartment about 25 minutes after entering, according to the prosecutor. They didn’t touch the rolex watches or the wads of cash inside the safe and scattered throughout the apartment.

Halem’s lawyer, Megan Maitia, Cast Offerent “suspected motive” in the hearing of the case, asking that the young man is explained by the authorities since the victim has collected so much crypto.

“How does a 17-year-old do this?” he asked.

Maitia said that it was not his client who threatened to harm the girl, but one suspect, who had not been “everyone who thinks it is very dangerous.”

Brownstone told the judge that police are still looking for a sixth suspect.

Maitia asked Los Angeles County District Attorney Victoria Wilson to grant bail for her client. Far from the top flight, the wheeled deep-giving merchant was revealed to be a halem, a father of two, now he was broke, said his lawyer. His house had foreclosures and liens and he sold a hidden “flight” that prosecutors pointed out when they argued that he was in danger of talking, Maiti said.

Wilson told: “The bank accounts are empty.

Maitia also said that Halem is in danger at the Los Angeles County Jail. “He is worried that he will be killed because he was a police officer,” he said.

Wilson said he would order the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, which is in charge of jails, to protect Halem but was not moved to grant him bail.

And he didn’t accept Ben’s release. His attorney, Kellen Davis, said his client has no violent convictions and has always complied with court orders “from a limited history.”

Ben was convicted of orchestrating a “bust aut” by paying people to open bank accounts that were later used to commit fraud, court records show. He was also accused of robbing elderly people after entering their homes disguised as an HVAC technician and secretly posing for driver’s licenses and bank statements.

Ben, who lived in Los Angeles and Miami, took care of health and assisted living facilities, said Davis. Wilson told Act: “They are legitimate and have been working for them for years.

The judge did not believe it. Wilson called the allegations that Ben and his accomplices were being made by the police “very troubling,” and said there was a chance he could make others “if he gets out of prison.

Staff writera woman Libor Janny and Richard Winton contributed to this report.