Indian National Found Guilty of Wire Fraud Conspiracy in the USA for Stealing Over $37 Million through Spoofing Coinbase
30-year-old Chirag Tomar found himself guilty in the USA on charges of theft of more than $37 million in hundreds of victims by creating a website imitating Coinbase. The exact number of victims is not specified, but it is noted that the scheme has affected users around the world, including in the USA.
Tomar was arrested at the entrance to the country on December 20, 2023 and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to make fraud using electronic communications, for which he threatens up to 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
The site “Coinbasepro [.] COM” was created in 2021 to deceive users, forcing them to believe that they get access to the real Coinbase Pro service. The victims that introduced their accounting data on a fake site were theft of Coinbase accounting data. In some cases, scammers forced users to provide remote access to the desktop, which allowed them to access the accounts on Coinbase.
Fraudsters also pretended to be representatives of the Coinbase customer support service, seeking from users of the transmission of two-factor authentication codes by phone. After receiving access to the victims of the victims, the criminals quickly transferred assets to their cryptocurrencies. In one of the cases, a victim from the United States lost cryptocurrency worth more than $240,000, when she was forced to make a fake representative of Coinbase to restore access to his trading account.
Chirag Tomar controlled several cryptocurrency wallets, which received stolen funds totaling tens of millions of dollars. The funds were then converted to other cryptocurrencies or moved to other wallets, and ultimately cashed out to maintain the “luxurious lifestyle” of Tomar, which included the purchase of Rolex watches, Lamborghini and Porsche sportswoman, as well as numerous trips to Dubai and Thailand.