An Indian national, who stole more than $20 million worth of crypto from Coinbase users to fund his lavish lifestyle, was sentenced to 60 months in prison on Thursday. The sentence, handed down by a federal judge in North Carolina, comes after 31-year-old Chirag Tomar pled guilty in May to “spoofing” the Coinbase website, tricking hundreds of victims into handing over their login credentials and access to their crypto wallets.
“Spoofing, as it pertains to cybercrime, is when a malicious cyber actor disguises an email address, sender name, or website URL to convince victims they are interacting with a trusted source,” the Justice Department said in a statement.
The scam began as far back as June 2021 and involved the operation of a fraudulent website built to look exactly like the Coinbase Pro version using a slightly different URL—the scammers used ”Coinbasepro.com” instead of the authentic “Pro.Coinbase.com.” Once the victims entered their Coinbase username and password into the fraudulent website, an authentication process was triggered.