Miami gang leader Esteban Cabrera Da Corte was sentenced to 63 years by a New York federal court for masterminding a cryptocurrency scam that defrauded a U.S. bank and a well-known exchange of more than $4 million. months in prison.
The scheme involved fraudulent chargebacks in which financial institutions were tricked into reimbursing criminals who used stolen personal data to impersonate others.
US banks and cryptocurrency exchanges were fooled
Esteban Cabrera Da Corte, also known as "Esteban Cabrera" and "Steban," led a scheme from at least 2020 through March 2020, according to an investigation conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
The scam ringleader, along with his co-conspirators, purchased more than $4 million in cryptocurrency, defrauding U.S. banks and a prominent cryptocurrency exchange (the identity of which was not disclosed by the Justice Department).
They then falsely claimed that the transactions were unauthorized, prompting banks and exchanges to reverse the transactions and deposit the funds into accounts controlled by the defendants. The defendants then withdrew funds from those accounts while retaining the digital assets for themselves.
To carry out their fraudulent scheme, Cabrera Da Corte and his co-conspirators created accounts on cryptocurrency exchanges using forged U.S. passports, fake driver’s licenses and stolen personal information.
These accounts were linked to bank accounts under the defendants’ control. The defendants used funds deposited into these accounts (typically in the form of cash deposits through ATMs) to purchase cryptocurrency.
Cryptocurrency scammers' tactics revealed
According to the DOJ, the acquired digital assets were quickly transferred to other wallets outside of the exchange that were controlled by the defendants and their accomplices.
Following these transfers, the defendants made false phone claims to Bank of America stating that the cryptocurrency purchases were unauthorized, causing the bank to reverse the transactions.
The criminal operations carried out by the defendants resulted in more than $4 million in fraudulent reversals processed by Bank of America and losses incurred by the Exchange totaling more than $3.5 million.
In addition to the prison time, Esteban Cabrera Da Corte, 27, of Miami, Florida, was ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $3,578,786.69 and forfeit $1,200,000.
The daily chart below shows the continued upward trend in the total cryptocurrency market capitalization over the past few weeks.
The global cryptocurrency market continues to demonstrate resilience and growth, with the total market capitalization now sitting at an impressive $1.41 trillion, according to CoinGecko data.
This represents a 1.09% change in the last 24 hours and a staggering 68.45% change from the market cap a year ago.
Bitcoin (BTC) maintains its position as the market leader. With a market cap of $748 billion, Bitcoin has a dominant share of approximately 49.64% of the total cryptocurrency market. #加密货币 #欺诈
