Two Canadian nationals have been sentenced to two years in jail in the United States over a bitcoin scam run via the microblogging platform Twitter.
The alleged scammers, Karanjit Singh Khatkar, and Jagroop Singh Khatka, were sentenced to 24 months in federal prison with three years of supervised release for conspiring to commit wire fraud and money laundering.
A press release published by the U.S. Department of Justice Attorney’s Office details that the case was investigated by the FBI, and saw the Canadian duo trick victims into believing they were speaking with customer service representatives of crypto exchange HitBTC via the Twitter account “HitBTCAssist.”
Using the account, they tricked a victim into handing over 23.2 BTC, at press time worth $118,600, from a wallet on the cryptocurrency exchange, to one belonging to Karanjit Kahtkar on Kraken. The victim also revealed sensitive information regarding his account, CoinDesk reports.
Shortly after the 23.2 BTC were sent over, the duo split the funds and sold the cryptocurrency. The proceeds were then used on a lavish lifestyle that included trips to casinos and luxury cars. Last month, both pleaded guilty to the charges, and were ordered to pay a total of $184,500 in restitution.
Crypto scammers have been known to use their stolen funds to buy luxury cars, as last year an alleged SIM swapper used stolen BTC to buy a McLaren.
Featured image via Unsplash.
