Pleaded Guilty for Creating Spoofed Coinbase Website and Stealing Crypto

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Hey folks.

A citizen of India, this week pleaded guilty to United States charges that he created a fake website for Coinbase making him steal login informations on the real thing and steal more than $9.5 million of crypto assets from hundreds of victims.

On December 20, 2023, Chirag Tomar 30, was arrested at the airport of Atlanta while visiting family on a visit visa. He was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Both the charges reportedly carrry a max sentence of 20 years in jail.

Chirag Tomar with his co-conspirators created a fake version of the Coinbase's Pro website to cheat Coinbase users to fork over their login credentials, according to court documents filed in the Western District of North Carolina.

More than 500 victims were scammed out of their crypto assets between at least June 2021 and Tomar's arrest in late 2023.

Court filings reveal that Tomar's use of an email account under his actual name for correspondence with both known and unknown co-conspirators in the fraud allowed the U.S. Secret Service to identify him as a part of the crime ring.

Tomar also kept spreadsheet of the victims and how much had been stolen from each and sent identity documents that were "stolen or fraudulently obtained" to other email addresses that were used to register for accounts at another cryptocurrency exchange, Binance.

Chirag Tomar has not yet been sentenced.

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