A US federal court has reportedly ordered a SIM hijacker who allegedly stole crypto worth millions of dollars in his teens seven years ago to hand over the proceeds of his crimes.
According to a report by The San Francisco Standard, in 2016, Ahmad Wagaafe Hared stole digital assets, including Bitcoin (BTC), from cryptocurrency executives and investors living in Northern California along with two co-conspirators.
Hared was reportedly living in Tucson, Arizona at the time.
The report says Hared and his co-conspirators would first obtain the personally identifiable information of their intended victims. They then contacted wireless carriers and posed as their victims to transfer the victims’ phone numbers to a SIM card that Hared and his co-conspirators controlled – a form of fraud known as SIM hijacking or sim swapping.
Once in possession of their victims’ phone numbers, Hared and his co-conspirators would gain access to their victims’ email and other accounts.
And once they had their victims’ email addresses and other accounts under their control, the SIM card hijackers would then access and steal their victims’ crypto assets.
The federal court order now requires Hared to forfeit 119.8 Bitcoin worth $3.09 million, 93,420 Stellar (XLM) worth $12,238, and a luxury car.
Bitcoin is trading at $25,804 at the time of writing, while Stellar is worth $0.131.
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