Two Canadian Teens Charged for Impersonating Coinbase Support to Steal $4.2m in Crypto

cryptonews.com:

A pair of teens from Hamilton, Canada, was recently arrested and charged with theft and possession of criminally obtained property after the authorities managed to trace $4.2 million in Bitcoin and Ethereum back to them. 

The two individuals in question are both seventeen-year-old boys who defrauded a US investor by pretending to be Coinbase customer support.

According to the authorities, the pair conducted a type of scam known as the spear phishing attack. This is a type of phishing attack that targets specific individuals, whereas regular phishing attacks are typically more general, targeting a specific group, such as any employee of a specific company.

During spear phishing attacks, the attackers typically try to present themselves as a trusted source, which is trying to contact the target regarding something urgent. Their real goal is to extract information that could lead to their financial or other benefit. 

So, after falsely presenting themselves as Coinbase support, the two teens tried to obtain information that would allow them to compromise the victim’s account and crypto portfolio.

Needless to say, the teens were successful in robbing the US investor. After obtaining the money, some of it was used to purchase the Instagram handle “@Zombie.”

This is a username that is commonly sought-after in the gaming community. The teens used other aliases, including Felon and Gaze.

The local report states that the investigation started in June, and the massive amount in question was large enough for the FBI and the United States Secret Service Electronic Crimes Task Force to get involved. Working together, the two agencies identified the culprits, who were then arrested.

A deeper investigation discovered that this was likely not