Two Canadian citizens who posed as HitBTC exchange support staff on a social networkTwitter, 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 three years of supervised release for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering through BTC.
According to a press release from the US Department of Justice,The defendants posed as representatives of the customer service department of the HitBTC cryptocurrency exchange. In October 2017, scammers used the Twitter social networking account @HitBTCAssist 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.
Recently, a US citizen was sentenced to 13 years forfinancing terrorism with cryptocurrencies. In addition, the Seattle District Court recently found former Microsoft employee Vladimir Kvashchuk guilty of fraud and laundering stolen funds through cryptocurrency mixers. He faces up to 20 years in prison.
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