October 30, 2023 at 07:04PM
Jordan Persad, a 20-year-old from Florida, has been sentenced to 30 months in prison for his involvement in a SIM-swapping ring that stole almost $1 million in cryptocurrency. Persad and his co-conspirators used SIM swapping to gain access to victims’ online accounts and cryptocurrency wallets. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit computer fraud. The group stole at least $950,000, and Persad personally kept approximately $475,000. Some funds were recovered during an FBI search of Persad’s home. The connection between Persad’s group and the cybercriminal gang Scattered Spider remains unclear.
During the meeting, it was discussed that a 20-year-old man named Jordan Persad from Florida has been sentenced to 30 months in prison for his involvement in a SIM-swapping ring. This ring managed to steal nearly $1 million in cryptocurrency from multiple victims. Persad pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit computer fraud on May 1 and was also ordered to pay $945,833 in restitution.
SIM swapping is a technique used by criminals to convince a victim’s mobile carrier to reassign the victim’s cellphone number to a SIM card in the scammer’s phone. Once they have control of the victim’s phone number, they can request password resets for the victim’s online accounts, with the verification codes being sent to the scammer instead of the victim. This allows the criminals to hijack the victim’s accounts, including cryptocurrency wallets hosted by exchanges.
In Persad’s case, he hacked into victims’ email accounts, hijacked their cell phone numbers, and gained unauthorized access to their online cryptocurrency accounts. He obtained log files of email address and password combinations, logged into people’s webmail, took control of the numbers associated with the victims’ SIM cards, and then raided their crypto-wallets.
Persad and his co-conspirators managed to steal at least $950,000 from their victims, with Persad personally keeping approximately $475,000. Some of the funds were recovered by FBI investigators when they executed search warrants at Persad’s home.
There is speculation that this type of scam and its timing aligns with the activities of a cybercriminal group known as Scattered Spider. This group started with SIM swapping and email/SMS phishing attacks in 2022 and later expanded into ransomware and extortion. It is not known if Persad is connected to this group.
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