The US Department of Justice has sentenced two Canadian nationals to two years in prison for stealing Bitcoin via a 2017 social media scam. The fraudsters, in March 2017, were convicted and sentenced to 24 months in prison for money laundering and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
In October 2017, 23-year-old Karanjit Khatar and 24-year-old Jagroop Khatar both posed as customer service personnel from HitBC crypto exchange, based in Hong Kong. Using the @HitBTCAssist on twitter, they convinced the Oregon victim to share personal information. This enabled the scammers to access the victim’s email, Kraken and HitBTC account, allowing them to transfer 23.2 Bitcoins, about $130,000 at the time.
Karanjit and Jagroop split the stolen Bitcoin into halves, sold them for fiat and squandered them on gambling and expensive cars.
Karanjit was arrested on July 18, 2019, at the McCarran Airport, Las Vegas. Jargoop later showed up in court voluntarily. December 16, 2019, they pleaded guilty and were fined a sum of $184,511.
In 2018, the US Department of Justice seized Bitcoin worth more than $20 million at the time, for several illegal activities carried out on the dark web.
Image Credits: Pixabay
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