Pierluigi Paganini
November 19, 2021
A Canadian teenager has been arrested for his alleged role in the theft of roughly $36.5 million worth of cryptocurrency from an American individual.
The news of the arrest was disclosed by the Hamilton Police in Ontario, Canada, as a result of a joint investigation conducted by the FBI and the United States Secret Service Electronic Crimes Task Force that started in March 2020.
The cryptocurrency has been stolen through a SIM swapping attack that allowed the attackers to bypass 2FA used to protect the wallets containing the funds.
“The victim had been targeted by a SIM swap attack, a method of hijacking valuable accounts by manipulating cellular network employees to duplicate phone numbers so threat actors can intercept two-factor authorization requests.” reads the announcement published by the police. “As a result of the SIM swap attack, approximately $46 million CAD worth of cryptocurrency was stolen from the victim. This is currently the biggest cryptocurrency theft reported from one person.”
The police revealed that some of the stolen cryptocurrency was used to purchase an online username that was rare in the gaming community. The analysis of the transaction associated with the purchase allowed the investigators to unmask the account holder of the rare username.
The police arrested the man for theft over $5,000.00 and possession of property or proceeds of property obtained by crime.
Hamilton Police made multiple seizures for a total value of $7 million CAD.
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