21-year-old resident of Manhattan and Harvard student Nicholas Trulia (Nicholas Truglia) hacked phones of several leaders from Silicon valley in an attempt to steal the cryptocurrency belong to them. In one case he succeeded.
Using the scheme, known as a SIM swap, Trulia got access to the SIM card of a resident of San Francisco Robert Ross (Robert Ross) and stole his $1 million These funds were kept in accounts cryptomeria Coinbase and Gemini (for $500 thousand on each site).
Ross noticed that his phone lost the signal on October 26. He asked for help with your carrier and Apple, but did not manage to find out the cause, as his money was stolen. According to the victim, it was all his savings.
In addition to Ross, Trulia also hacked the smartphones of the head of the blockchain platform 0Chain Saswati Bass (Saswata Basu), Vice-President of Hall Capital Partners Danielsen miles (Myles Danielsen) and cofounder of a startup SMBX Katznelson, Gabriella (Gabrielle Katsnelson). He got access to SIM cards of the victims, but to steal the money could not.
SIM swap allows the scammer to re-register the phone numbers of the victims themselves, thus obtaining access to their credentials.
The authorities in new York arrested Truly in his own apartment on November 14. During the search, Federal agents found the hardware of the purse and was able to get Ross to $300 million of stolen funds. Prosecutors believe that the fraud was not working alone.
At the moment the attacker is awaiting trial.
It should be noted that Trulia’s been involved in a police investigation earlier. In September of this year he accused his four friends that they tortured him, trying to access cryptocurrency wallet with $1.2 million in BTC.
We also recall that in the summer the police of the city of Santa Clara, California, have arrested a 19-year-old Xavier Clement Narvaez (Xzavyer Clemente Narvaez), who also stole money with the help of SIM-swapping.
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