California Student Sentenced For 10 Years After BTC SIM-Swap Hack

California student, the 21-year-old man from Boston has been sentenced to 10 years in prison after he stole $7.5 million in BTC. He was able to do the crime by hacking the victims’ phones by using the method ‘’SIM swapping’’ which we are about to find out more in today’s altcoin news.

This is reportedly the first arrest and conviction in the United States for using this criminal method. The SIM swap method is when the hacker clones the victim’s sim cards in order to hack their smartphones and gains access to their accounts. The California student, Joel Ortiz, and his friend targeted people who are already in the crypto industry. Ortiz managed to steal millions in 2018 after he was able to hack people’s smartphones at Consensus which as an industry conference hosted by the crypto news site CoinDesk.

The California student stole more than $7.5 million from about 40 people according to the Santa Clara District Attorney’s Office reports:

 “Ortiz was a prolific SIM swapper who targeted victims to steal cryptocurrency and to take over social media accounts with the goal of selling them for Bitcoin. After his thefts, Ortiz spent his loot lavishly – including $10,000 nights at Los Angeles clubs, hiring a helicopter to bring him and some friends to a music festival, and on Gucci luggage and clothing.”

Joel Ortiz was sentenced to 10 years in prison by the Santa Clara County Judge Edward Lee after hearing the victims on how they got their lives ruined when he stole all their money. The DA’s office also explained the SIM swapping method:

“Hackers call a telecom company posing as their target and claim that their SIM card has been lost, and that they would like their number to be ported to a new card. The criminals can convince phone companies that they are who they claim to be by providing stolen Social Security numbers or addresses.”

Joel Ortiz also stole more than $1 million from Ross when he gained access to his cell phone and his accounts that led him to the crypto exchanges. Ross never heard about this method before until he lost all of his money. He is now urging cell phone providers to offer better security measures to help the victims as the latest cryptocurrency news reports show.