A federal judge sentenced a Bayonne man to a year and nine months in prison on Tuesday for stealing $500,000 worth of cryptocurrency by “swapping” investors’ phone numbers with devices he controlled before draining their accounts.
Ebrahem Adeeb, 20, previously admitted in court that he exchanged SIM card information to gain control of his victim’s phones, at which point he would request a new password to their cryptocurrency profiles.
Once the platform sent a link for the password reset to the victims’ emails, Adeeb used his phone to enter their email accounts and access the link to change the passcode. Once inside the victims’ crypto accounts, he would pilfer their funds, dumping the tokens into his own digital wallet, the U.S. Attorney’s Office stated.
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Along with accomplices, Adeeb stole more than a half-million dollars between October 2020 and May 2021, according to the Justice Department.
Following his prison term, Adeeb will be subject to three years of supervised release and must pay $504,418 in restitution.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Bayonne NJ man stole crypto using ‘swapped’ SIM cards