{"id":75723,"date":"2023-03-17T12:12:27","date_gmt":"2023-03-17T10:12:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=75723"},"modified":"2025-09-10T13:14:40","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T10:14:40","slug":"texas-couple-sentenced-in-san-antonio-for-250000-cryptocurrency-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/texas-couple-sentenced-in-san-antonio-for-250000-cryptocurrency-fraud\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas couple sentenced in San Antonio for $250,000 cryptocurrency fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"

The court in San Antonio, Texas, handed down a sentence against a married couple on charges of SIM-swap fraud. The statement<\/a> from the U.S. Department of Justice says so.<\/p>\n

According to court documents, using this scheme, 22-year-old Andrew Percy Trujillo and 34-year-old Zena Eliza Dowson stole $250,000 in cryptocurrency.<\/p>\n

The investigation revealed that he worked at the AT&T mobile carrier. Using his position, he linked Dowson’s phone as an additional user to the victims’ SIM cards.<\/p>\n

The method allowed criminals to redirect messages and calls to another device. As a result, the couple gained access to others’ cryptocurrency accounts and transferred assets to their own wallet.<\/p>\n

\n

“SIM swapping is a rapidly evolving fraud scheme that everyone should know about. … Anyone who uses two-factor authentication should remember that this method is not 100% reliable. Users still need to monitor any suspicious activity related to their phones,” said Prosecutor Jaime Esparza.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The defendants pleaded guilty. Trujillo was sentenced to 33 months in prison and three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay restitution totaling $282,000. His co-defendant received two months in prison, five years of probation, and a similar monetary penalty.<\/p>\n

In September 2021, a Texas resident filed a lawsuit against AT&T<\/a>. He alleges that he was the victim of SIM-card swapping by the telecommunications giant and lost 159.8 ETH.<\/p>\n

Earlier, the U.S. Central District Court of California dismissed the suit<\/a> by BitAngels founder Michael Terpin against AT&T for damages.<\/p>\n

The plaintiff claimed that in 2018 the company aided the scammers in SIM swapping, causing him to lose cryptocurrency worth $24 million. The investor sought $200 million in damages. However, the court found no evidence of fraud or employee negligence.<\/p>\n

As reported in March 2023, U.S. authorities arrested<\/a> Chinese citizen Miles Gu on charges of fraud involving digital assets worth $1 billion. He duped his victims into investing in the online club G |CLUBS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The San Antonio court in Texas handed down a sentence against a married couple on charges of SIM-swapping fraud, according to a statement from the U.S. Department of Justice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":75724,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1162,1246,1688,26],"class_list":["post-75723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-court-cases","tag-scammers","tag-sim-swapping","tag-usa"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"30","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75723"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75723\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75725,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75723\/revisions\/75725"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}