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College Student Who Stole More Than $5 Million in Cryptocurrency By SIM Swapping Gets 10 Years in Prison -- First Person To Be Sentenced For the Crime (vice.com)

Posted by msmash on from the setting-precedence dept.

A 20-year-old college student who was accused of stealing more than $5 million in cryptocurrency in a slew of SIM hijacking attacks is the first person to be sentenced for the crime. From a report: A college student who stole more than $5 million in cryptocurrency by hijacking the phone numbers of around 40 victims pleaded guilty and accepted a plea deal of 10 years in prison, Motherboard has learned. Joel Ortiz accepted the plea deal last week, Erin West, the Deputy District Attorney in Santa Clara County, California, told Motherboard during a meeting on Thursday. The authorities believe Ortiz is the first person to be convicted of a crime for SIM swapping, an increasingly popular and damaging hack.

The prosecutors and agents who have been investigating these hacks celebrated the conviction, and said they hope that this will serve as an example for the other alleged criminals who have already been arrested, as well as the ones who have yet to be caught. "We think justice has been served. And hopefully this is a strong message to that community," Samy Tarazi, one of the agents who investigated the Ortiz case, told me. Ortiz is one af a handful of SIM swappers who have been arrested in the last year for hijacking phone numbers and using them to then hack into emails, social media accounts, and online Bitcoin wallets.

11 of 59 comments (clear)

  1. From the article by Crashmarik · · Score: 3, Informative

    On July 12, police in California arrested a college student accused of being part of a group of criminals who hacked dozens of cellphone numbers to steal more than $5 million in cryptocurrency. Joel Ortiz, a 20-year-old from Boston, allegedly hacked around 40 victims with the help of still unnamed accomplices, according to court documents obtained by Motherboard.

    https://motherboard.vice.com/e...

    Which sounds a bit more likely but still seems to be missing quite a bit.

  2. Am I supposed to feel sorry ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... because he is a "college kid"?

    A thieve is a thieve regardless of the level of education he/she has.

    1. Re:Am I supposed to feel sorry ... by m.alessandrini · · Score: 2

      Maybe he has to build a fire-wall.

    2. Re:Am I supposed to feel sorry ... by serviscope_minor · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No, you are supposed to feel sorry that stealing Monopoly money only agreed upon by a relative few people

      That's a massive, massive misrepresentation of reality.

      *You* clearly don't like bitcoin but that's irrelevant. It has a market cap of 60 billion dollars, about the same as Phillip Morris.

      You can equally well level your accusaions against shares in that company. They are paper money, not many people hold them (i.e. the value is agreed by relatively few people) and the organisation is a deeply hateful one.

      It doesn't matter though. The money can be got in and out easily and it's REAL money. The guy stole 5 million real dollars whether or not you personally happen to like that kind of value.

      If nothing else, feel sorry for the tax dollars being spent on keeping this guy out of society for ten years rather than slapping him with a huge fine and forcing him to work it off.

      Your previous argument has no bearing on that. The relative merits of prison vs non custodial sentances is irrelevant to you not liking the money he stole. Shame really because your second point is a much more interesting one, but it's realy overshadowed by the first.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    3. Re:Am I supposed to feel sorry ... by bloodhawk · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I don't care whether it is real money or monopoly money or lollipops, The guy is a thief, he stole what others valued and obviously what he himself valued and he did not do this once, but at least 20 times He deserves everything he got.

    4. Re:Am I supposed to feel sorry ... by ToTheStars · · Score: 4, Funny

      The singular of "cats" is "cat", and so the singular form of "thieves" must be "thieve"! I don't see any trouble here.
      Now if you'll excuse me, I've just rearranged my boxen, so I need to update the indice of the coordinates of their vertices...

    5. Re:Am I supposed to feel sorry ... by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 2

      Even if what you steal is Monopoly money, the value basis for classifying a crime is the amount in local fiat, dollars in this case, that it trades for.

    6. Re:Am I supposed to feel sorry ... by The-Ixian · · Score: 2

      It doesn't matter though. The money can be got in and out easily and it's REAL money. The guy stole 5 million real dollars whether or not you personally happen to like that kind of value.

      And we can make him give it back and work on rehabilitation.

      He should be sentenced to do the hashing math of mining new bitcoins by hand until he has mined enough to repay his debt ;P

      --
      My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
    7. Re:Am I supposed to feel sorry ... by jythie · · Score: 2

      He stole millions in something that can be exchanged for money. Doesn't matter what it was, and the severity of the crime should not be minimized simply because it was something the speaker does not value. If he had stolen gold bars or stacks of cash hopefully it would produce a similar sentence.

  3. the most shocking bit of this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Just yesterday I was reading an article about a man in Washington, DC who violently sexually assaulted unknown women on the street. He was finally caught moments after one red-handed with the scratches on his face from his fighting back and her phone in his possession. He confessed to the other crimes. Zero question of his guilt.

    He got 10 DAYS in jail. Which they let him serve in 2 day stints so that he wouldn't lose his job as a chef.

  4. 10 years is too much by Baki · · Score: 2

    Yes he is a thieve and deserves a punishment. 10 years however is insane. It may fit with the other extremely harsh sentencing culture in the US, but that doesn't make it right. In the Netherlands, he would get 1 year, at most. Yet the crime rate is much lower, the prisons are emtpy, and the whole prison system is much cheaper and mainly directed towards rehabilitation. A system that locks away people for so long is sick IMHO.