This is breaking news! An 18-year-old man from Montreal, Canada has been charged with four separate criminal charges associated with a $50 million dollar SIM-swapping scam. SIM-swapping is a type of account takeover fraud that generally targets a weakness in two-factor authentication and two-step verification in which the second factor or step is a text message (SMS) or call placed to a mobile telephone. Samy Bensaci is the culprit associated in a fairly large ring of cryptocurrency thieves. They have been accused of stealing millions of dollars from both Canadian and American cryptocurrency holders.
They managed to hack some pretty high-profile victims. Among these victims were Don and Alex Tapscott. They are Canadian cryptocurrency entrepreneurs and co-authors of the book “Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World.” Luckily for them, the hackers were unsuccessful in stealing their funds. They have been cooperating with the police ever since and both parties were determined for justice to be served.
Bensaci was arrested in November of 2019 and released on a $200,000 bail while being prohibited from using any device with the capability of going online. This includes gaming consoles.
