Canadian teen nabbed in $36.5m crypto heist – possibly the biggest haul yet by a single individual

A Canadian teenager has been arrested for allegedly stealing $37m worth of cryptocurrency ($46m Canadian) via a SIM swap scam, making it the largest virtual cash heist affecting a single person yet, according to police. Together with the FBI and the US Secret Service Electronic Crimes Task Force, Hamilton Police in the …

[W.S.Gosset]

Tsk

Kids today.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Tsk

I know. In my day, we laundered the money first and then bought stuff!

[Winkypop]

Re: Tsk

Yeah, back then we’d cash in some empty bottles and then attempt to nick them back afterwards.

Rinse repeat.

Kids today eh?

[Clausewitz 4.0]

Re: Tsk

The kid missed the 101 thief class .

Probably bought the username from the same wallet he transferred funds to, 5 minutes after the raid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Could you please hold my wallet while I make a phone call? Thanks.

But then I would never get rich on bitcoin because I'd never take a chance on it.

[DJO]

Priorities

Steal money and get 20 years.

Try to overthrow the government and get 41 months.

What does that say about the priorities in American "justice"?

[MiguelC]

Re: Priorities

Not even real money...

[MiguelC]

USD 30M still missing?

He stole USD 37M and cops recovered around 5.5M. Assuming (yes, yes...) the username he bought didn't cost over 30M, did he spend the remainder of the loot or is this just the usual cryptocurrency volatility?

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: USD 30M still missing?

Yeah, IIRC this is at least the second case recently where many millions of cryptocurrency are reportedly stolen, the cops catch the miscreant, but only seem to recover 10-20%

[lglethal]

You have to be kidding me!!!

These scammers were offering a promise of 40% return on investment and people actually gave them money. How daft do you have to be?????

It's almost like some people deserve to be fleeced...

[midcapwarrior]

Re: You have to be kidding me!!!

"The pair promised to generate return profits of as much as 40 per cent, and were given $2 billion worth of Bitcoin."

And they are selling 56 million in recovered funds. Wonder where the other 95% went.

[Clausewitz 4.0]

Re: You have to be kidding me!!!

People are sometimes really stupid.

If they required just the API TOKEN with trade only capabilities in any platform - Ok.

I have seen bots trading in futures generating 15% stead, even more, in a multicoin scenario.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: You have to be kidding me!!!

"It's almost like some people deserve to be fleeced..."

There's a lot of greedy people in the world. But like a pyramid, only the very few at the top get rich, the rest end up being the victims.

[tessus]

RCMP too ignorant

But the RCMP is too ignorant or too lazy to investigate companies that force SMS as 2FA onto users. Visa does this with their "verified by Visa" idiocracy, but there are many more companies that think this is safe. I have no idea how they made it through a security audit. There's a reason why an industry standard like TOTP exists. Oh well, the RCMP rather has teens circumvent 2FA...