A Michigan man appeared in federal court on Friday on charges related to his involvement in a scheme aimed at defrauding victims of at least $1.4 million in cryptocurrency.
The man, Anthony Tyler Nashatka, also known as “psycho,” is charged with conspiracy to commit computer fraud and abuse, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and other crimes.
On August 13, 2019, Nashatka was indicted along with United Kingdom resident Elliott Gunton, also known as “planet” or “Glubz,” with conspiring to target a cryptocurrency exchange platform to steal the information of hundreds of users.
In December of 2017, the two used the identity of a victim to access the platform’s domain name settings and then disabled the cryptocurrency organization’s servers and diverted users to fake websites to trick them into revealing their cryptocurrency addresses and private keys.
Between December 20 and 21, 2017, Nashatka and his co-conspirators harvested the credentials of hundreds of users, stole their cryptocurrency, and transferred around $600,000 in funds to their own cryptocurrency address.
The indictment also reveals that the two used the fraud scheme to steal an additional $800,000 from a single victim on December 26, 2017.
Nashatka, who was arrested in New York on September 6, 2019, is scheduled to appear in court on November 13, 2019, for a status conference.
The maximum statutory sentences the defendant faces include 10 years in prison for conspiracy to commit computer fraud and abuse, 5 years in prison for unauthorized access to a protected computer to obtain value, 20 years in prison for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and 2 years in prison (to run consecutive to any other term imposed) for aggravated identity theft.
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