Florida man sentenced to prison for SIM Swapping conspiracy that led to theft of $1M in cryptocurrency

A man from Orlando was sentenced to prison for SIM Swapping conspiracy that led to the theft of approximately $1M in cryptocurrency.

Jordan Dave Persad (20), from Orlando, Florida, was sentenced to 30 months in prison for SIM Swapping conspiracy, followed by three years of supervised release. He pleaded guilty to Conspiracy to Commit Computer Fraud. 

United States District Judge Diane J. Humetewa also ordered Persad to pay $945,833 in restitution.

Persad was also ordered to pay $945,833 in restitution. Persad pleaded guilty to Conspiracy to Commit Computer Fraud.

The man was sentenced for his role in a hacking scheme that led to the theft of approximately $1M worth of cryptocurrency from dozens of victims. Persad and his co-conspirators hacked the email accounts of the victims, hijacked their cell phone numbers, and took over their online cryptocurrency accounts.

“Between March 2021 and September 2022, Persad and his co-conspirators hacked into victims’ email accounts, hijacked their cell phone numbers, and gained unauthorized access to their online cryptocurrency accounts. As a result of this scheme, often referred to as “SIM swapping,” Persad and his co-conspirators stole close to $1 million worth of cryptocurrency from dozens of victims, including approximately $30,000 from a victim in Arizona.” reads the press release published by DoJ. “Defendant and his co-conspirators then divided these stolen funds amongst themselves, with Persad keeping around $475,000. Investigators were able to recover some of these funds when they executed search warrants at Persad’s Orlando home.”

In June 2023, Joseph James O’Connor, aka PlugwalkJoe (24), the hacker who was involved in the attacks on Twitter in 2020, was sentenced to five years in prison for cybercrime offenses.

On November 2021, the US Department of Justice indicted Joseph James O’Connor for stealing $784,000 worth of cryptocurrency using SIM swap attacks.

Crooks conduct SIM swapping attacks to take control of victims’ phone numbers tricking the mobile operator employees into porting them to SIMs under the control of the fraudsters. Once hijacked a SIM, the attackers can steal money, cryptocurrencies and personal information, including contacts synced with online accounts. The criminals could hijack social media accounts and bypass 2FA services based on SMS used by online services, including financial ones.

According to the indictment, O’Connor and co-conspirators used SIM swaps to gain access to accounts of a Manhattan-based cryptocurrency company.

The group stole approximately 770.784869 Bitcoin cash, approximately 6,363.490509 Litecoin, approximately 407.396074 Ethereum, and approximately 7.456728 Bitcoin. 

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, SIM Swapping)