Tuesday, May 14, 2019

LA County Detectives Bust Cryptocurrency Hacking Group

Detectives from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Fraud & Cyber Crimes Bureau say they have arrested a suspect in a $2.4M, cryptocurrency heist, where a citizen of West Hollywood reported being a victim of a large cryptocurrency theft. According to the detectives at the LA County Sheriff, it has indicted Reyad Gafar Abbas, 19, one of nine individuals indicted as part of a multinational hacking group known as "The Community", which used "SIM swapping" to gain control of a victim's mobile phone to access their cryptocurrency wallet. The Sheriff's Department said the investigation was made in conjunction with Homeland Security. Abbas was arrested in Rochester, New York. Cryptocurrency thefts appear to have hit a number of local cryptocurrency investors; just yesterday, one high-profile investor with a big presence in Los Angeles, Michael Terpin, announced a $75.8M judgement related to another, cryptocurrency-and-SIM hacking incident.