We still don't know who the brains are behind the operation, but three young men from Tennessee were indicted by a federal grand jury and may lead investigators to the co-conspirator or co-conspirators who guided them to holders of large sums of crypto in California.

The three men in their 20s from Tennessee who were earlier identified by federal investigators — 21-year-old Elijah Armstrong, 21-year-old Nino Chindavanh, and 25-year-old Jayden Rucker — have been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of kidnapping and robbery in connection with multiple violent incidents in the Bay Area and Los Angeles in November and December 2025.

We learned in early April that all three had been arrested, with court documents begining to fill in the pieces of the puzzling and scary home-invasion robbery that occurred near San Francisco's Dolores Park on November 22. In that incident, someone linked to Sam Altman's ex Lachy Groom was robbed at gunpoint of $13 million in cryptocurrency, with the lone perpetrator posing as a package delivery person before pushing his way into the home.

San Francisco police say that the victim was tied up with duct tape and assaulted until he gave up his crypto wallet passwords — and the suspect was in contact the whole time with another man on a cellphone with a raspy (or digitally altered) voice. Investigators said they linked at least one of the cellphones involved to a Washington state man with a criminal history who has not yet been identified or charged.

A new press release from the Department of Justice, detailing the indictments against the three men, does not mention any unidentified co-conpirators, and it's unclear which of the men committed the San Francisco heist.

Chindavanh was arrested in December in Sunnyvale after allegedly posing as a DoorDash driver and attempting to push his way into a victim's home with a gun. Armstrong and Rucker were arrested in Los Angeles after a robbery similar to the one that occurred in San Francisco, involving zip ties and crypto wallets, but where a second victim who was hiding managed to summon police while the robbery was still in progress.

"These individuals, as alleged, terrorized their victims in the hopes of stealing vast sums of cryptocurrency," says US Attorney Craig H. Missakian in a staement. "The scheme was not only sophisticated, it was brazen, violent, and dangerous. I want to commend our law enforcement partners for the quick work done in identifying and apprehending these individuals and assure the public that we will not let our guard down and continue to do all we can to ensure this does not happen again."

All three are now charged with conspiracy to commit Hobbs Act robbery — with the Hobbs Act being the federal law that prohibits robbery or extortion that affects interstate or foreign commerce — as well as conspiracy to commit kidnapping, attempted kidnapping, and attempted Hobbs Act robbery.

Armstrong and Rucker are making appearances in federal court in San Francisco today, before US Magistrate Judge Thomas S. Hixson. Chindavanh has his next court appearance on June 26.

Perhaps because the first and most successful of the robberies, the November heist at the home near Dolores Park, occurred in San Francisco, all three men are being tried in a San Francisco federal court.

It's not clear if any of the victims had their crypto holdings restored, but the federal indictment only mentions one theft of $6.5 million worth of crypto that was transferred into a wallet belonging to the co-conspirators. There is no mention of the $13 million that was allegedly stolen from the San Francisco victim.

Previously: Three Tennessee Men Arrested In Connection With Crypto Heist Near Dolores Park