The Norwich Crown Court in the United Kingdom has sentenced Elliott Gunton to 3.5 years in prison for his role in a hacking conspiracy aimed at stealing funds from clients of the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. This was reported by Norwich Evening News.
The 24-year-old defendant, along with accomplices, gained access to login data for over 500 users on the platform through various methods, including contacting telecommunications companies with “sob stories” to redirect calls.
The stolen logins were redirected by the perpetrators to a fake exchange site, thereby stealing assets worth over $900,000.
“This was a highly sophisticated crime that required significant planning and technical knowledge,” stated Judge Alice Robinson.
Gunton pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud outside the UK and money laundering.
The crimes he was charged with were committed in 2018-2019. However, the young man was already an experienced hacker by then—at the age of 16, he stole personal data from clients of the phone company TalkTalk and sold it for cryptocurrency worth “hundreds of thousands of pounds sterling.”
In 2019, he was sentenced to 20 months in prison and ordered to pay £407,359 for hacking celebrity Instagram accounts.
Gunton also faced potential deportation to the United States, where he faced additional charges.
In July, clients of the bankrupt exchange Mt.Gox widely reported attempts to hack their accounts.