The Justice Department has charged three individuals with orchestrating a SIM swap attack that stole more than $400 million from a company believed to be the collapsed FTX exchange, according to an indictment filed in federal court last week.
According to the indictment filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Robert Powell, Emily Hernandez and Carter Rohn targeted multiple victims between March 2021 and April 2023. committed a SIM swap fraud. The name of the exchange was not disclosed in the indictment, according to Bloomberg. reported FTX is one of the victims and is listed in the filing as Victim Company-1, the company said today, citing two sources familiar with the matter.
Prosecutors charged the three with fraud and identity theft.
“A SIM swap attack refers to the process of fraudulently inducing a telecommunications carrier to reassign a mobile phone number from the SIM card of a legitimate subscriber or user to a SIM card controlled by a criminal actor,” the indictment said.
According to the report, the perpetrators allegedly used fraudulent identities to access FTX employees’ AT&T accounts, then unlocked FTX’s online accounts and stole $400 million worth of cryptocurrency.
FTX It filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November 2022 after numerous accusations that management profited from customer funds. Founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried be found guilty Last year he was jailed for decades for defrauding FTX investors.
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About the author
Danny Park is The Block’s East Asia reporter, writing about topics including Web3 development and cryptocurrency regulation in the region. He previously worked as a reporter for Forkast.News, where he actively covered the fall of Terra-Luna and FTX. Based in Seoul, Danny previously produced written and video content for media companies in Korea, Hong Kong, and China. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism and Business Marketing from the University of Hong Kong.