The US Justice Department has announced sanctions against two Russians, and the arrest of two Malaysians, over separate seven-figure crypto scams.
The United States has taken actions against international hackers responsible for the theft of millions of dollars in cryptocurrency.
On September 16, the US Department of Justice, US Department of Homeland Security, and the US The Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announced it has imposed sanctions on two Russian nationals who used a sophistication phishing campaign to steal at least $16.8 million from the customers of three virtual currency exchanges in 2017 and 2018 — including two based in the United States.
The pair, Danil Potekhin and Dmitrii Karasavidi, created multiple websites impersonating legitimate crypto exchanges to steal the login information for unsuspecting victims, before using accounts verified with stolen identities to move the crypto assets through various intermediaries and execute pump and dump schemes targeting altcoins with low market capitalization.