Michael Terpin, the Bitcoin investor who had $24 million worth of cryptocurrency stolen from him in a SIM-swapping hack, has been awarded a payout three-times the size of his original loss.
Los Angeles Superior Court has ordered New York-based Bitcoin Bandit Nicholas Truglia to pay Terpin $74.8 million in compensation, Reuters reports.
Truglia and his gang of 25 accomplices used SIM-swapping to gain access to and control Terpin’s cryptocurrency accounts in early 2018. The gang drained his accounts of 3 million tokens of an unnamed digital asset.
Terpin logged his case against Truglia in January this year, and is still pursuing the other members of Truglia’s gang.
He is also trying to sue mobile phone operator AT&T for $224 million citing gross negligence. He claims the company was pivotal in allowing Terpin’s gang to steal his phone number and drain his cryptocurrency accounts.
Just last week, a 20 year-old Irish man was arrested in connection to a $2.4 million cryptocurrency SIM-swap hack.
Indeed, it seems that SIM-swapping is becoming a favorite tool of the hackers of the world.
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.