Hudson County Man Sentenced to 21 Months in Prison for Conspiracy to Steal Cryptocurrency

NEWARK, N.J. – A Hudson County, New Jersey, man was sentenced today to 21 months in prison for conspiring to steal more than $500,000 worth of cryptocurrency from users’ accounts with a cryptocurrency exchange platform, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger announced. 

Ebrahem Adeeb, 20, of Bayonne, New Jersey previously pleaded guilty by  videoconference before U.S. District Judge Claire C. Cecchi to an information charging him with conspiring to commit wire fraud.

According to documents filed in the case and statements made in court:

From October 2020 through May 2021 Adeeb and his conspirators “swapped” the subscriber identity module (SIM) associated with a victim’s  phone number for another SIM loaded into a mobile device they controlled in order to access and control the victim’s accounts. Adeeb and his conspirators then sent a password reset request to a digital currency exchange platform, which caused the company to send a password reset link to the victim’s email account. Adeeb and his conspirators then accessed the victim’s email account and account at the currency exchange company and transferred cryptocurrency from the victim’s account to a cryptocurrency wallet they controlled. Adeeb and his conspirators stole cryptocurrency valued at more than $500,000 at the time of the thefts.

In additional to the prison term, Judge Cecchi sentenced Adeeb to three years of supervised release and ordered him to pay restitution of $504,418.

U.S. Attorney Sellinger credited the FBI, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge James E. Dennehy in Newark, with the investigation leading to today’s sentencing.

The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Kogan of the U.S. Attorney’s Office Cybercrime Unit in Newark.