Canadian scammers face 2-year sentence in U.S. federal prison for stealing 23.2 bitcoins
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has sentenced two Canadian scammers to two years in the U.S. federal prison for impersonating HitBTC employees on Twitter and stealing 23.2 bitcoins from an Oregon resident.
According to a statement by the DOJ, Karanjit Khatkar and Jagroop Khatkar used a fraudulent Twitter account, @HitBTCAssist, to pose as customer service representatives from cryptocurrency exchange HitBTC and trick a victim into revealing their email, HitBTC and Kraken login information. The pair then managed to transfer 23.2 bitcoins from the victim’s HitBTC account.
Karanjit Khatkar was arrested in Las Vegas during July 2019, while Jagroop Khatkar voluntarily came to his arraignment in Dec. 2019. They both plead guilty to “conspiring to commit wire fraud and money laundering” at the end of last year.
As a part of the deal, they agreed to pay restitution of $184,510 and have delivered a check of $142,349 as a prepayment. Per a Tuesday announcement, they were sentenced to two years in federal prison and three years of supervised release.
