Two Canadian Citizens Convicted of Stealing BTC via Twitter Fraud

Two Canadian citizens who introduced themselves as members of the HitBTC social media support service Twitter, were sentenced to jail for stealing bitcoins from an Oregon resident.

Karanjit Singh Khatkar andJagroop Singh Khatkar was sentenced to 24 months in federal prison, followed by release for three years in prison for conspiracy to commit electronic fraud and money laundering through BTC.

According to a US Department of Justice press release,the defendants posed as representatives of the customer service department of the HitBTC cryptocurrency exchange. In October 2017, scammers used the Twitter @HitBTCAssist social network account to impersonate exchange employees.

They forced one of the users to translate 23.2 BTC from HitBTC wallet to the Karandjit Hatkar wallet on the Kraken exchange. Fraudsters also convinced an Oregon resident to give them information that could be used to hack into his accounts, including email, as well as information about an account on the exchange.

Within a few days after the theft scammersshared the proceeds of fraudulent BTC and spent money on luxury goods and casino games. In addition to imprisonment, defendants must pay $ 184,511 in fines.

The other day, a US citizen was sentenced to 13 years forcryptocurrency terrorism financing. In addition, the Seattle District Court recently convicted former Microsoft employee Vladimir Kvashchuk of fraud and laundering stolen funds through cryptocurrency mixers. He faces up to 20 years in prison.