Nicholas Truglia was given an 18-month prison term for running crypto scams

Truglia was found guilty of taking part in a theft scheme in which more than $20 million worth of cryptocurrencies were taken during a SIM swap raid on a victim and was given a prison sentence by United States Federal Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein.

Malicious cyberattack strategy

Nicholas Truglia took part in a malicious cyberattack in January 2018 to break into a victim's account and steal cryptocurrency from the victim's online stores.

Michael Terpin, the founding president and CEO of Transform Group, was the victim. Other participants in the scheme successfully gained unauthorized access to the victim's online stores using a cyber invasion tactic known as SIM swapping.

The attack was successful, and the criminals used the victim's mobile number and the SIM swap strategy to gain unauthorized access to the victim's online accounts.

In a SIM swap raid, cybercriminals take over a victim's phone number by linking it to a Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card they monitor.

Because of the SIM swap, the attackers will have access to all calls and texts on a different device. Threat actors used the victim's mobile phone number in the Truglia theft case to gain unauthorized access to the victim's accounts linked to the phone number.

Once inside the victim's crypto wallet, where more than $20 million in digital assets were stored, the attackers gained access.

A participant in the theft scheme then contacted Truglia and was invited to take part in an online conference call with other participants.

Truglia agreed to accept cryptocurrency that had been forcibly transferred from the victim's cryptocurrency wallet into one of his online accounts after being informed about the SIM Swap during the call.

After the thieves in the theft scheme converted the victim's stolen money to Bitcoin, Truglia made the account accessible to them. The attackers, who moved most of the Bitcoin to other accounts under their control, transferred only a tiny portion of the fraudulent funds to Truglia.

Over $20 million was totaled as the amount taken by the attackers, while Truglia received $673,000.

The verdict

Truglia was given an 18-month prison term in addition to $983,010.72 in additional fines and $20,379,007 in restitution. Currently, Truglia has served out the first 12 months of his term. Previously, he was scheduled to serve 51 to 63 months in prison.

When his $53 million in assets were made public during the sentencing, he committed to pay over $20 million in restitution. The items included art, jewelry, and cryptocurrency.

Truglia has previously been detained for engaging in other crypto theft schemes, but during the court proceeding, he apologized to the case's victim and vowed to start over. He claimed that stealing from someone online was "shameful," as he would never do it in person.