A 23-year-old from Sheepshead Bay has been sentenced to four to 12 years in prison for stealing $16 million from nearly 100 Coinbase users, after posing as a representative of the exchange and persuading them to move their funds somewhere he controlled.
Ronald Spektor contacted users claiming to work for Coinbase and telling them their assets were exposed to a hacker, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said.
The sequence began with a victim's phone filling up with alerts, the New York Times reported at his arraignment in December, followed by an email promising a call from the exchange, sometimes under the name James Wilson. Victims then moved their holdings to what they understood to be a new wallet under their sole control. It was accessible to Spektor, who emptied it.
He pleaded guilty on September 2 to the entire 31-count indictment, including first-degree money laundering, first-degree grand larceny and first-degree criminal possession of stolen property. Justice Danny Chun imposed the sentence on Wednesday over the objection of prosecutors, who had asked for seven to 21 years. Spektor must also forfeit cash, crypto and property valued at more than half a million dollars, and pay restitution of almost $16 million.
The losses totalled $15,944,000 and the victims were spread across the country. Some lost $1 million or more.
The money was swapped repeatedly across exchanges before being consolidated at what the office called cash-out points, where it was converted into other tokens, cash and gift cards. Large portions went to gambling services and online storefronts.
Investigators tied the scheme to Spektor using transaction records, blockchain analysis, digital forensics and material seized under several search warrants. His home IP address was linked to multiple wallets that crypto had been stolen from. He lived with his father.
Independent blockchain investigator ZachXBT had named him in a thread in November 2024, and prosecutors interviewed 70 victims. His phone held 12 wallets tied to at least 140 deposits traced back to 90 people, one of them holding about $6.3 million.
He also talked about it. Under the handle @lolimfeelingevil he ran a Telegram channel called “Blockchain enemies” where he boasted about the thefts, and he used online forums to recruit others to act as social engineers, staging what looked to victims like hacking attempts.
Messages recovered by investigators show him writing in slang that he had lost $6 million in crypto gambling, and suggesting he had made millions from scamming. After allegations about him began circulating online, he got rid of a hardware wallet and bought a replacement, and told his helpers to replace their equipment too. He spent months moving around the country by Greyhound bus, discussed leaving for Mexico or Canada and sent $600,000 in crypto to someone in Georgia, prosecutors said, before returning to Brooklyn, where he was arrested.
Prosecutors seized $105,000 in cash and $400,000 in crypto from Spektor when he was arrested, the Times reported, and the forfeiture order covers cash, crypto and personal property worth more than half a million dollars. Restitution was set at almost $16 million. Millions remain unaccounted for, and prosecutors said at his arraignment that Spektor holds the key to reaching them.
Gonzalez said his office would "follow the digital trail wherever it leads." It added that Coinbase and most companies will never call customers or ask them to move crypto to a safe wallet.
