TechFlow, December 16 — According to Businessinsider, Ronald Spektor, a 23-year-old Brooklyn resident, has been arrested for impersonating a Coinbase customer service representative in a large-scale fraud scheme and is currently detained at Rikers Island jail with bail set at $500,000 in cash or $1 million in bond.
Prosecutors allege that since April 2023, Spektor contacted approximately 100 Coinbase users by phone, falsely claiming their assets were at risk and needed to be transferred to a "new wallet" for protection. Once victims trusted him and provided their seed phrases (a sequence of 12 to 24 words serving as passwords), their cryptocurrencies were immediately transferred to accounts controlled by the suspect.
Investigations show that users in California alone lost over $6 million and $1 million respectively. More than $5 million of the stolen funds were traced to the suspect's online gambling accounts, while the remainder was converted into cash or laundered through cryptocurrency exchange services.
Law enforcement found substantial evidence on the suspect's phone, including Discord conversations where he boasted about earning millions of dollars from the scam, as well as communications with his parents discussing how to hide the illicit proceeds.
Spektor faces multiple felony charges including grand larceny and money laundering, each carrying a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison. His attorney, Todd Spodek, stated that the suspect has pleaded not guilty to all charges and described the allegations as "based on incomplete information."
