The Department of Justice has accused three individuals of orchestrating a SIM-swapping attack to steal over $400 million from a company, likely the collapsed FTX exchange.
The indictment filed in federal court last week identifies Robert Powell, Emily Hernandez, and Carter Rohn as the culprits. The trio conducted SIM-swapping scams, targeting various victims between March 2021 and April 2023.
The indictment did not reveal the exchange’s name, but according to two sources familiar with the situation, as reported by Bloomberg today, FTX is one of the entities affected and is referred to as Victim Company-1 in the filing.
A SIM swap attack involves tricking a mobile carrier into transferring a cell phone number from the legitimate user’s SIM card to one controlled by the criminal.
As per the submitted documentation, the individuals responsible for the incident obtained entry into an AT&T account belonging to an FTX staff member through deceptive identities. Subsequently, they reportedly accessed FTX’s online accounts and purportedly pilfered cryptocurrency amounting to $400 million in value.
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