Two Canadian citizens who represented HitBTC's Twitter support service were sentenced to prison for stealing Bitcoins from an Oregon resident.
Karanjit Singh Khatkar and Jagroop Singh Khatkar were sentenced to 24 months in federal prison, followed by three years in prison for conspiracy to commit electronic fraud and money laundering via BTC.
According to a press release from the U.S. Department of Justice, the defendants posed as representatives of the HitBTC Cryptographic Exchange's customer service division. In October 2017, the scammers used a Twitter account at the social network @HitBTCAssist to impersonate exchange employees.
They forced one of the users to transfer 23.2 BTC from HitBTC's wallet to Karandjit Hatkar's wallet at Kraken Exchange. The scammers also convinced an Oregon resident to give them information that could be used to hack into their accounts, including email, as well as account information on the exchange.
Within days of the theft, the scammers shared the proceeds from the fraudulent BTC and spent the money on luxury goods and a casino game. In addition to imprisonment, the defendants must pay $184,511 in fines.
The other day, a U.S. citizen was sentenced to 13 years in prison for financing terrorism with cryptographic currency. In addition, the Seattle District Court recently found former Microsoft employee Vladimir Kvashchuk guilty of fraud and laundering stolen funds through crypt currency mixers. He faces up to 20 years in prison.
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