The Circuit Criminal Court in Dublin has sentenced local resident Conor Freeman to prison for stealing more than $2 million in cryptocurrency through SIM-card swapping. The Irish Times reports.<\/p>\n
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Freeman was part of a six-person criminal group. He checked victims’ email inboxes for information on accounts containing digital assets. The attackers then swapped their SIM cards, gaining passwords to restore access to various platforms.<\/p>\n
In total in May 2018 they hacked three cryptocurrency accounts, stealing $100,000, $167,000 and more than $1.9 million. At the time of his arrest Freeman had spent part of his share. He handed over to police an electronic wallet containing the remaining 142.7 BTC and the access keys.<\/p>\n
The court sentenced the Dublin resident to two years and eleven months in prison.<\/p>\n
Earlier, one Reddit user reported the theft from two addresses of 100,000 BCH and 1,550 BTC. In his view, the attackers gained access to the funds through SIM-card swapping.<\/p>\n
Earlier, unknown attackers used a similar method to steal 1.09 BTC from a resident of Moscow.<\/p>\n