Americans can use cryptocurrencies to secure mortgages under new Trump administration
U.S. homebuyers will soon be able to use cryptocurrencies to secure mortgages under a new order from the Trump administration.
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The spoils of their digital plunder funded lavish parties and extravagant splurges. But when the operators of a vast cryptocurrency extortion ring needed some old-fashioned physical strength to steal from their victims, they called on Gosferrari.
This week, Gosferrari, real name Marlon Ferro, a 20-year-old from Santa Ana, California, was sentenced to 78 months in federal prison for his role in a massive fraud conspiracy that defrauded victims in the United States of more than $263 million in cryptocurrencies. He was also ordered to pay $2.5 million in restitution and serve three years of supervised release.
“Marlon Ferro became a criminal organization’s last resort,” U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said in a U.S. Department of Justice news release. “When his co-conspirators were unable to trick the victims into handing over access to their cryptocurrencies or break into their digital accounts, they relied on Ferro to break into their homes and steal their hardware wallets outright.”
Mr. Ferro pleaded guilty in October 2025 to conspiring to participate in a corrupt organization influenced by racketeers.
The bureau said ring members and associates spent the stolen virtual currency on $500,000 a night in nightclub services, up to $3.8 million worth of exotic cars, luxury watches and handbags, private jets and security, and rental homes in Miami, Los Angeles, and the Hamptons. Large sums of cash were sometimes hidden inside stuffed animals and sent to members by U.S. mail.
Among the items authorities listed for forfeiture from the group were more than 20 cars, including multiple Lamborghinis, Porsches, Rolls-Royces, BMWs and Ferraris, as well as dozens of designer clothing items and nearly $170,000 in Louis Vuitton bags, according to a superseding indictment.
According to the Department of Justice, the group’s criminal activities occurred between October 2023 and March 2025, with members in California, Connecticut, Florida, New York, and abroad performing specialized roles including target identification, database hacking, fraudulent calls, money laundering, and home invasions. According to a previous department release, the group evolved from friendships formed on online gaming platforms.
The company targeted people who appeared to hold large amounts of cryptocurrencies. The members cold-called victims and used psychological manipulation to trick them into believing that their accounts had been hacked and that corporate callers were trying to ensure their safety, and to access their digital wallets.
However, victims sometimes stored their cryptocurrencies in hardware wallets, which are physical devices that cannot be accessed remotely. That’s when the group turned to Ferro, the department said.
By the summer of 2024, Ferro had already stolen more than $5 million in Bitcoin from victims in Texas, and he had infiltrated the leaders of the extortion ring and provided home invasion services for future operations, the department said.
In July 2024, Ferro flew to New Mexico, where he placed a cellphone outside his residence and monitored the victim’s movements for several days, while his co-conspirators tracked the victim’s location through his iCloud account, law enforcement officials said.
Once the co-conspirators indicated the victim had left, Ferro used a brick to break a window, enter the residence and search the victim’s hardware wallet, whose presence was recorded on surveillance cameras in the home, federal prosecutors said.
The Justice Department said that in addition to his robbery skills, Ferro also carried out money laundering, a key part of the operation, by using fake identification documents obtained overseas to open digital payment card accounts that allowed corporate members to use stolen currency. Ferro himself reportedly spent more than $250,000 on designer clothing with the stolen funds.
After the company’s leader was arrested and imprisoned in September 2024, Mr. Ferro continued to support him from the outside, illegally converting hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of virtual currency into cash and using it to pay the leader’s lawyers. According to the police, the suspect also arranged to purchase a brand-name bag to send to the arrested leader’s girlfriend.
Ferro was arrested in May 2025 and found to be in possession of two firearms and a false ID.
“This scheme combined sophisticated online fraud with old-fashioned robbery to exfiltrate millions of dollars in digital assets from victims,” Pirro said. “Cryptocurrency fraud is not a victim-less, consequence-free crime committed safely behind a screen. It is a serious criminal offense that can land you in federal prison.”
