According to TechFlow, on October 18, a U.S. court sentenced 31-year-old Indian man Chirag Tomar to five years in prison and two years of supervised release after serving his sentence. Tomar stole more than $20 million by impersonating the Coinbase cryptocurrency trading website. He used the victims' funds to live a luxurious life and was arrested at the end of 2023. Tomar has pleaded guilty to wire fraud and will serve his sentence in federal prison.
According to court documents and Thursday’s sentencing hearing, Tomar and his accomplices engaged in a deception scheme since at least June 2021 to steal millions in cryptocurrency from victims around the world, including in the United States. They created a fake website that mimicked Coinbase Pro with a similar URL to trick users into entering their login credentials and two-factor authentication codes, giving them access to the victims’ legitimate Coinbase accounts. Alternatively, they posed as Coinbase customer service representatives to trick other users into providing authentication details over the phone or enabling remote desktop access to their computers, thereby helping to steal their cryptocurrency. Once the scammers had access to the victims’ accounts, they would transfer the cryptocurrency to wallets they controlled. The stolen funds were then transferred to multiple addresses, converted into other forms of cryptocurrency, and ultimately cashed out.