A crypto CEO accused of stealing bitcoin and ether currently worth more than $170 million has gone on the run after tampering with his ankle tag, prosecutors announced on Thursday.
According to an October 10 filing in New York, sixty-four-year-old Horst Jicha “tampered with his ankle bracelet on Friday, October 4, 2024, and has absconded in violation of his pretrial conditions.”
Pretrial services reportedly alerted the government 12 hours after the bracelet stopped working and an arrest warrant was requested that evening.
German citizen Jicha ran USI-Tech, an alleged multi-level marketing scheme that claimed to be a crypto-mining investment firm. From December 2017, USI-Tech received various cease and desist letters from US and Canadian securities authorities before shutting down in January 2018.
After this Jicha halted withdrawals and blamed investors for the shutdown, accusing them of misrepresenting the firm. He then allegedly ignored investor complaints and between 2017 and 2018, moved USI’s crypto holdings (worth ~$94 million at the time of the indictment) to a crypto account under his name.
Jicha, who had lived outside the US for five years, was arrested during a 2023 vacation in Miami. At this point, the missing 1,774 bitcoins and 28,589 ether were worth $150 million and he was charged with money laundering, wire fraud conspiracy, and securities fraud.
Jicha was released on bail with a $5 million bond and subsequently moved to New York where he remained under house arrest. According to the New York Daily News, his lawyer last contacted him on September 28.