Five Charged In $11 Million Crypto Theft Scheme

According to Cointelegraph, United States prosecutors have charged five individuals accused of participating in a scheme that allegedly hacked numerous businesses and individuals, resulting in the theft of $11 million in cryptocurrency and sensitive information. The California US Attorney’s Office announced on November 20 that the defendants employed SMS phishing links and SIM-swapping techniques to access the login credentials of individuals and employees of certain companies, targeting their work or cryptocurrency exchange accounts. Court documents reviewed by Cointelegraph revealed at least 29 alleged victims of individual crypto thefts. Prosecutors highlighted one case where a victim lost over $6.3 million in cryptocurrency after their email and wallets were compromised. Investigators reported that the group targeted 45 companies across the United States, Canada, India, and the United Kingdom. Among these was an unnamed US crypto exchange, whose employees received fraudulent text messages claiming their accounts would be deactivated, leading them to phishing links designed to extract sensitive credentials. Martin Estrada, the US Attorney in Los Angeles, stated, "We allege that this group of cybercriminals perpetrated a sophisticated scheme to steal intellectual property and proprietary information worth tens of millions of dollars and steal personal information belonging to hundreds of thousands of individuals." The defendants are reportedly members of the Scattered Spider hacking group, which prosecutors claim operated from around September 2021 to April 2023. The accused include Ahmed Elbadawy, 23, from Texas; Noah Urban, 20, from Florida; Evans Osiebo, 20, from Dallas; Joel Evans, 25, from North Carolina; and Tyler Buchanan, 22, from Scotland. Each defendant faces charges of conspiracy, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft, with Buchanan facing an additional wire fraud charge. The fraud-related charges alone carry a potential maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Last November, Reuters reported that the FBI had difficulty stopping Scattered Spider, which has been linked to the September 2023 hacks of Caesars Entertainment and MGM casinos, despite knowing the group members’ identities and locations in the US. It remains unclear if the five accused were involved in the casino hacks, but court documents reference "other co-conspirators" and an "unindicted co-conspirator," suggesting others may be implicated in crimes not yet publicly disclosed. Investigators, including the FBI and Police Scotland, tracked Buchanan through information he provided to register phishing sites used in the alleged scams. A search of Buchanan’s devices uncovered data from a US crypto exchange and a US telecom company. Information on legal representation for each defendant was not immediately available.