Brooklyn Man Gets Up to 12 Years for $16M Coinbase Scam
A Brooklyn man has been sentenced to between four and 12 years in prison for his role in a scheme that targeted nearly 100 people, netting over $16 million.
Ronald Spektor, 23, pleaded guilty on September 2 to all 31 charges against him, including first-degree grand larceny, first-degree money laundering, and first-degree criminal possession of stolen property.
The scam involved impersonating a Coinbase employee, warning victims that their accounts had been hacked, and convincing them to move their funds into what they believed was a secure wallet. Spektor controlled this wallet the entire time and drained the funds once transfers were made.
Total losses reached $15.944 million, with several individual victims losing seven-figure sums. Authorities recovered $105,000 in cash and $400,000 in digital assets from Spektor at the time of his arrest.