Florida man sentenced to prison for SIM Swapping conspiracy that led to theft of $1M in cryptocurrency
A man from Orlando was sentenced to prison for SIM Swapping conspiracy that led to the theft of roughly $1M in cryptocurrency.
Jordan Dave Persad (20), from Orlando, Florida, was sentenced to 30 months in prison for SIM Swapping conspiracy, adopted by three years of supervised launch. He pleaded responsible to Conspiracy to Commit Laptop Fraud.
United States District Decide Diane J. Humetewa additionally ordered Persad to pay $945,833 in restitution.
Persad was additionally ordered to pay $945,833 in restitution. Persad pleaded responsible to Conspiracy to Commit Laptop Fraud.
The man was sentenced for his function in a hacking scheme that led to the theft of roughly $1M value of cryptocurrency from dozens of victims. Persad and his co-conspirators hacked the e-mail accounts of the victims, hijacked their cellphone numbers, and took over their on-line cryptocurrency accounts.
“Between March 2021 and September 2022, Persad and his co-conspirators hacked into victims’ e mail accounts, hijacked their cellphone numbers, and gained unauthorized entry to their on-line cryptocurrency accounts. In consequence of this scheme, usually referred to as “SIM swapping,” Persad and his co-conspirators stole shut to $1 million value of cryptocurrency from dozens of victims, together with roughly $30,000 from a sufferer in Arizona.” reads the press release printed by DoJ. “Defendant and his co-conspirators then divided these stolen funds amongst themselves, with Persad conserving round $475,000. Investigators had been ready to recuperate some of these funds once they executed search warrants at Persad’s Orlando residence.”
In June 2023, Joseph James O’Connor, aka PlugwalkJoe (24), the hacker who was concerned in the assaults on Twitter in 2020, was sentenced to five years in prison for cybercrime offenses.
On November 2021, the US Division of Justice indicted Joseph James O’Connor for stealing $784,000 value of cryptocurrency utilizing SIM swap attacks.
Crooks conduct SIM swapping assaults to take management of victims’ cellphone numbers tricking the cellular operator workers into porting them to SIMs beneath the management of the fraudsters. As soon as hijacked a SIM, the attackers can steal cash, cryptocurrencies and private info, together with contacts synced with on-line accounts. The criminals may hijack social media accounts and bypass 2FA providers based mostly on SMS utilized by on-line providers, together with monetary ones.
In accordance to the indictment, O’Connor and co-conspirators used SIM swaps to achieve entry to accounts of a Manhattan-based cryptocurrency firm.
The group stole roughly 770.784869 Bitcoin money, roughly 6,363.490509 Litecoin, roughly 407.396074 Ethereum, and roughly 7.456728 Bitcoin.
Observe me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon
(SecurityAffairs – hacking, SIM Swapping)