Ex-LAPD Officer Gets Life Plus 15 Years Over $350K Bitcoin Robbery

A former Los Angeles police officer was sentenced Tuesday to life plus 15 years in state prison for a home invasion in which $350,000 in Bitcoin was taken from a teenager, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Eric Halem, 38, was found guilty in March of kidnapping and robbery after a two-week trial, with jurors returning a verdict in under a day. Superior Court Judge Mildred Escobedo rejected a late bid for a new trial before imposing concurrent life terms, saying the evidence showed a man prepared to use violence out of “sheer and utter greed.” He becomes eligible for parole after seven years, according to the district attorney’s office.

Prosecutors said Halem and three other men entered a Koreatown apartment at around 2:30 a.m. on December 28, 2024, handcuffed two victims, moved funds out of their cryptocurrency account and took cash and jewellery. The men arrived in a Range Rover and a Lamborghini Urus registered to Halem’s car rental business, wore vests identifying them as police, and let themselves in with an access code supplied by a conspirator who had rented the unit.

Halem had left the department nearly two years earlier after 13 years of service, though he was still a reserve officer at the time.

The 17-year-old, who testified under his first name only, had built his holdings partly by scamming others. Escobedo said that did not excuse the crime, and that a former officer masquerading as police to rob someone was “heinous and egregious.”

Halem’s family disputes the outcome. His mother Randi told the paper she believed the truth had not emerged at trial, calling it “a miscarriage of the law.”

Luis Banuelos, Pierre Louis and Mishael Mann were each charged in August 2025 with kidnapping for ransom, first-degree residential robbery and home invasion robbery in concert. All pleaded not guilty, have yet to stand trial and maintain their innocence.

Halem faces further charges over insurance fraud and a second crypto robbery said to have taken place days before the Koreatown raid. Those remain allegations.

Fake badges, and real ones

So-called “wrench attacks,” where criminals use violence to coerce crypto holders, are on the rise globally. CertiK verified 52 wrench attacks worldwide in the first half of 2026, with recorded losses of $124.1 million. Remy St. Felix was sentenced to 47 years in September 2024 for running a violent crypto home-invasion ring, at the time the longest term handed down in a U.S. crypto case.

Impersonating police has become a recurring technique for crypto criminals. Three men posing as officers held a French couple at knifepoint in March, forcing a $1 million Bitcoin transfer, and a 32-year-old was indicted in Nancy in June over a similar attack on a couple whose holdings had been exposed in a data breach. In Ukraine, prosecutors in May accused four police officers and a civilian of kidnapping crypto entrepreneurs at gunpoint and extorting $2.2 million using fabricated debt claims.