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Nahum Reynaldo Castro, a 40-year-old IT specialist from Miami, was arrested on May 26 on multiple charges including first-degree grand theft and money laundering after allegedly stealing approximately $1.9 million in Bitcoin from a former employer. The theft reportedly happened in 2020 and nobody noticed until July 2025.
Castro had been responsible for managing and securing the victim’s hardware wallet since 2013, making him one of only two people who knew the seed phrase needed to access the funds.
Five years of silence
The victim first started buying Bitcoin in December 2017. By January 2018, the wallet held over $217,000 in Bitcoin. Castro continued working as the victim’s IT specialist through 2024, a relationship spanning more than a decade.
According to investigators, the actual theft took place in 2020. But the victim didn’t discover the wallet was empty until July 2025, during a moving process.
Investigators traced the crime through bank records. Deposits into Castro’s accounts reportedly corresponded with withdrawals from the missing Bitcoin holdings, creating a paper trail that connected the stolen digital assets to traditional financial accounts.
The charges and what comes next
Castro faces charges of first-degree grand theft and money laundering for amounts exceeding $100,000, along with unlawful use of a communications device. His bond has been set at $50,000 pending a plea.
What this means for investors
This case is essentially a textbook example of the single point of failure problem in crypto custody. Multi-signature wallets, which require multiple independent parties to approve transactions, exist precisely to prevent a single trusted insider from walking away with everything. If the victim’s wallet had required both keyholders to sign off on any withdrawal, this alleged theft likely could not have happened.
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