Chirag Tomar, a citizen of India, has been sentenced to five years in prison for orchestrating a cryptocurrency fraud scheme amounting to $20 million. The crime involved a fake version of the Coinbase Pro website.
Court documents revealed that from June 2021 to December 2023, Tomar and his accomplices deceived hundreds of victims by using a fraudulent cryptocurrency trading platform. The criminals gained access to user accounts and stole cryptocurrency worth $20 million.
Tomar used the illegally obtained funds for lavish purchases, including Rolex and Audemars Piguet watches, Lamborghini and Porsche cars, and trips to London, Dubai, and Thailand.
In December 2023, Tomar was arrested at Atlanta’s airport when he arrived to visit his family on a tourist visa. In April 2024, he pleaded guilty to creating the fake Coinbase site and stealing $9.5 million as part of his fraudulent scheme.
“The use of fake websites and fraudulent transactions is becoming an increasingly popular method of fraud in the cryptocurrency industry,” said a Coinbase representative.
In a similar case, U.S. prosecutors requested a five-year sentence for hacker Ilya Lichtenstein, who breached the Bitfinex exchange. The SEC has also recently charged Vietnamese citizen Wai Pham with involvement in manipulating the markets for the meme tokens Saitama Inu and Robo Inu.
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