according to materials from the site - By Cointelegraph
Nicolas Trullia, a cryptocurrency fraudster, was convicted in 2022 and originally sentenced to 18 months in prison, was granted an extension on Thursday to 12 years for failing to return funds to the victim he attacked in 2018.
According to Bloomberg, Trullia has failed to pay over $20 million in restitution to cryptocurrency investor and CEO of the PR agency Transform Group, Michael Terpin.
"In handing down the sentence, Mr. Trullia demonstrated a willingness to return the entire amount stolen from his victim," Judge Alvin Hellerstein wrote in the ruling on July 2. The ruling also stated:
"Mr. Trullia has continually evaded payment of restitution and actively avoided law enforcement and judicial measures to enforce his restitution obligations. Despite evidence presented at the original sentencing that he owned assets totaling $61,830,828.10, which significantly exceed the established restitution obligations.
Despite his signed agreement with the restitution order, he has made no payments toward restitution," the ruling states.
As part of the original sentence, Judge Hellerstein also imposed three years of supervised release in addition to the 18 months of imprisonment and restitution.
Trullia was convicted on one count of fraud using a complex SIM swap scheme to hack Terpin's mobile phone and steal his cryptocurrency.
A SIM swap is the transfer of a victim's phone number to another SIM card, which can then receive any authentication messages from various service providers, including cryptocurrency exchanges and banks that use the phone number to verify identity.
In 2018, Trullia was arrested for attacking investors in the San Francisco Bay Area in California using SIM swap tactics to steal cryptocurrency.