TREE NEWS update: Ajay Shinjin, 25, was sentenced to two and a half years in prison on October 8 for his role in a SIM-swap fraud that stole nearly £200,000 ($265,000) in crypto assets, City of London Police said. The gang ported victims’ phone numbers to SIM cards they controlled to intercept SMS verification codes and access crypto accounts. Shinjin personally received over £44,000, which he spent on Dubai trips, a high-end apartment and gold-plated dental work. He had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud and transferring criminal proceeds.
UK Man Jailed 2.5 Years for SIM-Swap Crypto Theft of $265K
AI take
The sentence matters less as deterrence than as confirmation that SIM-swap cases are now being pursued through to conviction and asset tracing, not just reported as incidents. It underscores a structural weakness that phone-based two-factor authentication remains the softest link between a victim's identity and their crypto holdings, regardless of how robust the underlying chain is. The open question is whether exchanges and custodians treating SMS verification as acceptable will face pressure to move toward hardware keys or app-based authenticators.
Generated by AI for reference only.
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