U.S. Department of Justice: Over $400 million stolen on the day of FTX's bankruptcy due to SIM card swap attack

ChainCatcher news, according to Bloomberg, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) stated that the theft of over $400 million in assets from FTX on the day of its bankruptcy was due to a SIM card swapping attack.

According to the indictment filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, from March 2021 to April 2023, three suspects, Robert Powell, Carter Rohn, and Emily Hernandez, collected personal data from approximately 50 victims and used this information to persuade mobile providers to transfer the victims' phone numbers to their virtual phones, thereby intercepting text messages, including multi-factor authentication codes, to gain access to the victims' financial accounts and cryptocurrency wallets. On November 11, 2022, Hernandez used a fake ID with FTX employee details to convince AT&T to transfer the mobile account to another SIM card. Subsequently, Powell accessed FTX's cryptocurrency wallet using multiple identity verification codes. The three have been charged with fraud and identity theft.