Fraudster swapping SIMs for theft of crypto-currency funds charged officially

A teenage boy, aged 20, is facing indictment in New York Supreme Court for allegedly swapping SIM cards and committing ID-fraud so as to steal from victims their crypto-currency funds. The Manhattan Office of District Attorney declared about Ohio resident Dawson Bakies as accused of stealing identities as well as crypto-currency money from more than fifty people in USA during the period October-December 2018 through SIM-swapping attacks. There are 52 instances listed in the indictment of ID-theft, computer tampering, grand larceny along with plans for defrauding, against Bakies.

The attorney stated Mr. Bakies allegedly connected his victims' cell-phone number in an illegal way with several iPhone devices he had. This was for him to evade the dual-factor validation security while access the online profiles of his victims. And as he took pleasure in the said unlawful activities, Bakies managed gaining admission into eighteen online accounts 3 of his victims owned. The accused managed filching around USD10K worth cryptos during the process. Furthermore, he blackmailed one person among the 3 over a ransom in Bitcoins, according to the attorney's office. www.cryptonewsz.com posted this, February 4, 2019.

Officials from the Manhattan DA office retrieved one iPhone 6 that Bakies utilized during his illegal SIM-swapping operation. They found quite a many text messages consisting of passwords associated with Internet accounts of the victims inside the phone. They further retrieved one laptop having personal data of the victims, notably the 3 defrauded within Manhattan.

In the fraud with SIM swapping, the fraudster takes over the account of his victim via exploiting a dual-factor validation flaw wherein the 2nd factor involves a phone call or an SMS to one particular cell-phone. After successfully 'porting' the cell-phone number to the fraudster's cell-phone, it becomes simple for the fraudster to take or dial calls with the illegally acquired mobile number while posing as the victim. Text messages too become easy to intercept wherein the messages usually have security codes required for tapping the crypto accounts and bank accounts of the victims.

The teen accused currently imprisoned over theft of USD5m-and-more is facing a ten-yr period jail sentence.

» SPAMfighter News - 2/8/2019