Garrett Endicott, the sixth member of a hacking group called “The Community” was sentenced to 10 months in prison as well as ordered to pay a hefty fine of 120,000 dollars (about 90 lakh) for a 2019 SIM robbery. Cryptocurrency and email accounts of victims via SIM were hacked, this group stole up to 9 million dollars (about 67 billion VND). Garrett, the last member of the group to be arrested, was sentenced by the US Department of Justice on Tuesday, December 2.
According to a The report by The Hill, each victim of this scam loses between $2,000 (approximately Rs 1.5 lakh) to $5 million (approximately 3.7 crore). Many of the victims ended up losing their retirement money.
“The illegal activities of the ‘Community’ have been thwarted as a result of a complicated international electronic money and identity theft investigations. Given that criminal organizations often use web-based schemes to further their illegal activities, this demonstrates how vulnerable our personal information can be.” case manager James Harris said.
Other members of The Community were also sentenced to between 42 months and 3 years in prison, along with fines of up to $9.5 million (about Rs 71).
The crypto market is currently witnessing a global boom with the overall market capitalization recently hitting the $3 trillion mark (about 2.22.79,296 crore), according to market research tracker CoinGecko.
Cybercriminals are also targeting crypto holders, investors as well as exchanges to steal more assets. Recently, a cyber research team from Sophos discovered a Bitcoin The wallet is filled with $1.4 million worth of tokens (approximately Rs. 10 crore) that were collected through scams. Scammers have been looking for victims through dating apps like Bumble and Tinder.
In October, a major hacking attack took its toll Powered by Ethereum the lending protocol called “Cream Finance” is worth 130 million dollars (approximately Rs. 972 crore) in crypto assets.
Recently The report revealed that the total number of crypto crimes in 2020 amounts to around $10.52 billion (approximately Rs 79,194).
The same report also highlights that scams and fraud are a major problem causing 67.8% of all crypto crimes in 2020.
In early November, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said internet scammers are causing innocent people to use physical crypto ATMs and digital QR Codes to complete malicious transactions and steal their assets.
