Crime doesn't Pay

[Outhue]

"Lolimfeelingevil" aka Ronald Spektor is not like your average online scammer.

This 23 years old boy successfully stolen $16 million from 100 coinbase users by using phishing and social engineering scheme, he will pretend to be a Coinbase representative and start convincing people to send cryptocurrency to accounts that he controls.

His main trick is to tell victims that their coins are at a greater risk of being stolen by a hacker to make them feel imbalance and scared, he will then launder the assets using

Mixers, Swapping services, and Crypto gambling websites.

ZachXBT have been on this case for a year now, as a professional as he is it becomes extremely hard to tail this boy. Luckily this boy made a mistake by himself, he publicly bragged about his schemes within a channel on telegram called "Blockchain Enemies", he even said that he lost $6 million to gambling.

It was one of his victims that contacted ZachXBT and since then the hunt was on, now he is apprehended and facing 31 charges including

First degree grand larceny, first degree money laundering, and participating in scheme to defraud.



Source: https://decrypt.co/353190/brooklyn-man-charged-phishing-scheme-swiped-16-million-coinbase-users

You could justify this by saying that he made this mistake because he is just a boy of 23 years old, no older person will make such mistakes, but trust me, mistakes knows no age, there are mistakes for every ages, no matter how smart you are at stealing you will make mistake one day and get caught. Crime gets you there very quickly and it will pull the plug on you very fast when the time is right.

Crime doesn't pay.

[Porfirii]

I think that this is something that has to do with our (capitalist) culture. We're taught, many times subconsciously, that money and success are the most valuable things in life, and in that blindness, many people get lost.

What good is all that money to anyone, if he will live in fear of being caught all his life? What good is all that money to the protagonist of the OP, if he will spend the best years of his life in prison?

Crime doesn't pay, but that is not what those who practice it want to hear.

[GEMIN_M4]

Is this not the same time when Coinbase had some security problem on their platform? How come this was also the time that this scammer targeted the exchange? That's weird and suspicious.

The scammer is also living with his father, how is this happening under his guardian and he did not know what he is up to? This is what happens when you kids locked themselves in the basement or the room all day without you knowing what they are up to, if anyone should be spying on anything this days it should be the parents to their children.

Also this serves the victims well because they kept too much money on a centralised exchange, Coinbase is not a non-custodial wallet, people are just too stupid to know that no assets are safe on any centralised exchanges. If the assets were never on the exchange it would ruined the scammer strategy automatically.

[Ambatman]

Crime doesn't pay.

Tell that to the government or to those that were able to buy themselves a pass.
There are many more criminals that have done worse but are still seeing the light of the day.
I still believe that hardship in life isn't really a justification to cheat another and place them in a situation you trying to run from.

Transparency of Bitcoin despite is down side makes tracking stolen funds easy unlike cash.

First degree grand larceny, first degree money , and participating in scheme to defraud.

on Cases like this where the criminals are caught
Are the victims reimbursed? Or it turns into the government funds.

[Outhue]

Crime doesn't pay.

Tell that to the government or to those that were able to buy themselves a pass.
There are many more criminals that have done worse but are still seeing the light of the day.
I still believe that hardship in life isn't really a justification to cheat another and place them in a situation you trying to run from.

Transparency of Bitcoin despite is down side makes tracking stolen funds easy unlike cash.

First degree grand larceny, first degree money , and participating in scheme to defraud.

on Cases like this where the criminals are caught
Are the victims reimbursed? Or it turns into the government funds.

That justification is insane. LOL

Are you one of them? Those who always justify the reason why they turned or should turn cold and go fully into crime because some big boss out there are criminal lords and they never get punished for it.

Yet prisons have never for once goes down in numbers, they get filled and extras are been built again, Escobar should have never been touched because he was a boss too, every criminals have it's day coming, you are in power today you won't always be in power, that time is coming.

Bribing your way out will expired when the time ripes, there is nothing you and I should be using to make crime looks like a normal thing that we should do, you go and say something like this in front of your kid, and see what will happen, later you will find out that you are raising a criminal minded kid.

[aysha9853]

What surprises me is how often people still fall for fake support, exchanges repeat it all the time they will never ask you to send funds, age has nothing to do with it some scammers are young some are old, the common part is greed and thinking you are smarter than everyone else.

[Ambatman]

That justification is insane. LOL

Are you one of them? Those who always justify the reason why they turned or should turn cold and go fully into crime because some big boss out there are criminal lords and they never get punished for it.

Believe what you want to. Since this was censored to you.

I still believe that hardship in life isn't really a justification to cheat another and place them in a situation you trying to run from.

[Lucius]

~snip~
Crime doesn't pay.

Maybe honest people think so, but others would certainly disagree. Also, those who get caught are not really professionals, but amateurs who do bad things, and then brag about it in public. Given the relatively small penalties for such acts, I think some people do it consciously, even if they are aware that they could end up in prison - but if they manage to steal (and hide) enough money before that, then after they get out of prison they no longer have to worry about their future.

If people knew that they would receive a minimum of 25 years in prison, many would give up on such things - so, in addition to saying that those who engage in crime are guilty, it should be clearly said that those who do not demotivate them to try at all are equally guilty.

[Marvelockg]

~snip~
Crime doesn't pay.

Maybe honest people think so, but others would certainly disagree. Also, those who get caught are not really professionals, but amateurs who do bad things, and then brag about it in public. Given the relatively small penalties for such acts, I think some people do it consciously, even if they are aware that they could end up in prison

Criminals are criminals by nature. They know what comes with them getting involved in an act but still goes on to do it because they either think that they can outsmart the system or that even if they are eventually cought, that they can serve the jail term and still bounce back stronger afterwords.

If as an investor you're not going about sending your coin from one user to another expecially the ones you're not familiar with. if you pay attention to the people that are getting overly close to your crypto, chances are high you won't get all trapped into being scammed.

[NotATether]

How stupid do you have to be to gamble away your stolen earnings?

Granted, I don't think casinos will be on the hook for this, but this guy's coins will probably go into some sort of strategic reserve instead of back to their rightful owners.

[Cookdata]

What surprises me is how often people still fall for fake support, exchanges repeat it all the time they will never ask you to send funds, age has nothing to do with it some scammers are young some are old, the common part is greed and thinking you are smarter than everyone else.

You want to test something. Go to X under any crypto project, type "please I need your help with my wallet" or and then go to Binance exchange customer support handle and reply any of their tweet post with "I can see my deposit 3 hours since deposit". The number of impersonated account are going to be alarming, your replies is going to be filled with accounts impersonating real the customer account to help you solve problems they are not even affiliated.

It's ignorant and lack of awareness that made many people fall victims of these scams. If you are going to learn about crypto, be ready to learn about scams as well so you don't fall into one. It's even simple to avoid common scams but not everyone care to pay attention to them.

[Sticky Bomb]

First degree grand larceny, first degree money , and participating in scheme to defraud.

on Cases like this where the criminals are caught
Are the victims reimbursed? Or it turns into the government funds.

We've seen many times that such assets seized are retained by the government and not returned to the victims, a very recent example being the 204+ bitcoin seized by Taiwan in illegal transaction announced by their department of defense that the nation is holding it.

I believe the last victims that were reimbursed is MtGox clients, although I stand to be corrected. Others are considered government properties upon seizure.

[tbct_mt2]

You want to test something. Go to X under any crypto project, type "please I need your help with my wallet" or and then go to Binance exchange customer support handle and reply any of their tweet post with "I can see my deposit 3 hours since deposit". The number of impersonated account are going to be alarming, your replies is going to be filled with accounts impersonating real the customer account to help you solve problems they are not even affiliated.

It's ignorant and lack of awareness that made many people fall victims of these scams. If you are going to learn about crypto, be ready to learn about scams as well so you don't fall into one. It's even simple to avoid common scams but not everyone care to pay attention to them.

I did not use it at Binance by contacting them on X for support. With exchanges, I only open support tickets and ask for their support, and it's a most traditional channel for contact and support between a business and their customers. It's same with cryptocurrency centralized exchanges and it's true with Binance too.

Social media like X, Discord, Telegram are not only main support channels, but because people love social media, exchanges and business companies have to create their social media as part of their customer support. Anyway you will be directed to official channel like support ticket later.

Impersonators are very overwhelming on social media and with efficient bots, AI nowadays, there are countless impersonating accounts.

[ColdLava40]

You could justify this by saying that he made this mistake because he is just a boy of 23 years old, no older person will make such mistakes, but trust me, mistakes knows no age,  

Crime doesn't pay.

Lol, if we were to go by that, then how about the silk road case? Zhong was 22 years when he found the flaw then.. but he wasn't caught till he was 31. That's already a full grown man who thought he could get away with his crimes.

Considering how these kind of people are later apprehended by the authority is funny. Zhong from the silk road exploit, literally forgot he was a criminal and called the cops when he's house was broken into. That paved way for them to get on his tail.

Same with the person from this story, he was carried away and blared about his crimes forgetting what he is..

Crime will pay of course, but on a short term base. Just be ready for the shortcomings that follows..

on Cases like this where the criminals are caught
Are the victims reimbursed? Or it turns into the government funds.

We all know the answer to this... The government won't spend resources trying to find out who the victims were. They simply just confisticate such assets, it doesn't really go beyond that.

[AVE5]

You could justify this by saying that he made this mistake because he is just a boy of 23 years old, no older person will make such mistakes, but trust me, mistakes knows no age, there are mistakes for every ages, no matter how smart you are at stealing you will make mistake one day and get caught. Crime gets you there very quickly and it will pull the plug on you very fast when the time is right.

Crime doesn't pay.

If his age at 23 was a peg linking to his exposure according to you, don't you think the same experience he got to had succeeded in those fraudulent crimes is enough to guide him safely without a damn mistake? There's an adage that says EVERYDAY DAY FOR THE THEIF AND ONE DAY DIR RHE OWNER. That means if you're involved with crime with a smart play that you can't be caught, you can only escape it for the now but can't hide forever.
Well you've said what's most important that crime doesn't pay and as crime isn't about age. What he did was a mistake of which is part of the nature of humans error.
Let's also use this medium to let other bitcoin and crypto beginner users know that no wallet platform is genuine when demanding that you should send your asset to their own wallet address which isn't under your custody. Not for any critical reasons at all that they may claim.

[nakamura12]

What surprises me is how often people still fall for fake support, exchanges repeat it all the time they will never ask you to send funds, age has nothing to do with it some scammers are young some are old, the common part is greed and thinking you are smarter than everyone else.

Even as we discussed right now is that there are surely an email that are sent to different email addresses about being a customer support stating that their account is in danger and when the victim click the link then that's the time the victim get scammed. Mixers aren't bad in my opinion but there are people who use it to hide their illegal activities. Well, sooner or later that person will go to jail even if it will take some time.

[Swordsoffreedom]

You could justify this by saying that he made this mistake because he is just a boy of 23 years old, no older person will make such mistakes, but trust me, mistakes knows no age, there are mistakes for every ages, no matter how smart you are at stealing you will make mistake one day and get caught. Crime gets you there very quickly and it will pull the plug on you very fast when the time is right.

As far as I know  he is now serving a prison sentence. There are many victims of this scam who have lost more than 1 million dollars alone

Everyone should learn a lesson from this incident this was not a small childs mischief at all it was a completely pre planned and organized crime. Do not think that you are secured by buying Bitcoin and holding it in a wallet and that the blockchain is unstoppable  no one can steal it. If you hand over the private keys to a thief then  who can save you? The point is that in the virtual world you have to make your own financial decisions. Do not send money in a hurry if someone pressures you or says it is very urgent always check through official channels

[cr1776]

"Lolimfeelingevil" aka Ronald Spektor is not like your average online scammer.

This 23 years old boy successfully stolen $16 million from 100 coinbase users by using phishing and social engineering scheme, he will pretend to be a Coinbase representative and start convincing people to send cryptocurrency to accounts that he controls.

His main trick is to tell victims that their coins are at a greater risk of being stolen by a hacker to make them feel imbalance and scared, he will then launder the assets using

Mixers, Swapping services, and Crypto gambling websites.

ZachXBT have been on this case for a year now, as a professional as he is it becomes extremely hard to tail this boy. Luckily this boy made a mistake by himself, he publicly bragged about his schemes within a channel on telegram called "Blockchain Enemies", he even said that he lost $6 million to gambling.

It was one of his victims that contacted ZachXBT and since then the hunt was on, now he is apprehended and facing 31 charges including

First degree grand larceny, first degree money laundering, and participating in scheme to defraud.



Source: https://decrypt.co/353190/brooklyn-man-charged-phishing-scheme-swiped-16-million-coinbase-users

You could justify this by saying that he made this mistake because he is just a boy of 23 years old, no older person will make such mistakes, but trust me, mistakes knows no age, there are mistakes for every ages, no matter how smart you are at stealing you will make mistake one day and get caught. Crime gets you there very quickly and it will pull the plug on you very fast when the time is right.

Crime doesn't pay.

If he was 13, I might agree about "boy".  But 23?  No way.  There is no easy quick and easy way to make money, certainly not through crime.

[sunsilk]

That simply is karma for him. Stolen money won't let him live comfortably and I think that even if he doesn't lose that all in gambling.

There will be other ways of recklessness that could lose him those millions that he has swindled from people's sweats, tears and efforts of saving.

As far as I know  he is now serving a prison sentence. There are many victims of this scam who have lost more than 1 million dollars alone

This is the catch that I'd like to know. So, he's now paying jail time for all of the stealing that he's done.

[JoyMarsha]

~snip~
Crime doesn't pay.

Crime doesn't pay. How I wish all these scammers would get to know that, no matter how smart they think they are, a day would come when they would make that stupid mistake, and they would be caught, that ends it for them in years in prison for the gravity of the crime they committed against humanity. They will serve it all in prison whether they are young or old. No exception to that since they have the mind to scam their fellow human beings without having a conscience of what becomes of those they scam, who buy into their scam trick.