A 20-year outdated California resident was charged Monday by the Division of Justice for allegedly collaborating in a SIM-swapping rip-off that defrauded Apple and stole one sufferer’s cryptocurrency.
Richard Yuan Li, a scholar at College of California-San Diego, is accused of 1 rely of conspiracy to commit felony wire fraud in connection to the scheme, which hit 19 victims and efficiently plundered a “good portion” of crypto from one, a New Orleans physician, in accordance with the allegations.
The DOJ filed its fees towards Li within the U.S. District Courtroom for the Japanese District of Louisiana.
It isn’t clear how a lot crypto Li and conspirators allegedly stole from the unnamed physician. In response to case filings, the sufferer had accounts with Binance, Bittrex, Coinbase, Gemini and Poloniex, amongst others. At one level, one conspirator tried to extort the sufferer for 100 bitcoin.
How the alleged SIM swap went down, nevertheless, is abundantly clear. Li and his conspirator first tricked an Apple consultant into sending them an iPhone 8, “organized for victims’ phone numbers to be swapped” to that cellphone, after which bypassed their goal’s safety measures to realize entry to recordsdata, prosecutors declare.
Prosecutors allege that Li participated in a minimum of 28 SIM swaps between October 2018 and December 2018. They additional allege that the actions quantity to federal crimes as a result of the SIM swaps transmitted alerts throughout state traces and are due to this fact topic to the interstate commerce clause of the U.S. Structure.
If convicted, Li may face a five-year sentence and $250,000 nice.
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