When FTX filed for bankruptcy in November 2022, the defunct cryptocurrency exchange was hacked and more than $380 million in crypto was stolen from FTX's virtual wallets. It has been revealed that FTX has fallen victim to a SIM exchange scam orchestrated by mastermind Robert Powell. Powell was indicted along with Carter Roan and Emily Hernandez and is scheduled to appear in Chicago federal court later Friday for a detention hearing. CNBC reports: The three defendants are charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft and access device fraud in a scheme that ran from March 2021 to April of last year, in which co-conspirators committed 15 I had visited the mobile phone retail store more than once. state. According to the indictment, the trio shared the personal identifying information of more than 50 victims, created false identification documents in their names, impersonated them, and stole their “money and data.” “Accessed online, financial, and social media accounts for the purpose of stealing.” . ”
According to the indictment, the scheme relied on tricking telephone companies into replacing cell phone subscribers' subscriber identification modules with cell phones controlled by members of the conspiracy. This allowed the co-conspirators to defeat the victim's account's multi-factor authentication protection and gain access to the funds within the victim's account. Although the indictment does not name FTX as the primary victim of the conspiracy, the details of the hack described in the indictment document are publicly known about thefts from FTX, which was in disarray at the time of the attack. Match the details.