Crypto thief who splurged on gold grills sentenced in London

What happened

Telecommunications company BT identified unauthorized activity on its systems and discovered that customer telephone numbers had been transferred to SIM cards controlled by criminals. A 25-year-old man who helped steal nearly $260,000 in cryptocurrency through a SIM-swapping fraud scheme was sentenced to two and a half years in prison at a London court.

Ajay Shinjin, of Canary Wharf in London, used the stolen funds to finance an expensive lifestyle that included luxury holidays in Dubai and gold-plated dental grills, according to City of London Police. Shinjin, also known as AJ Marley Cruz, was sentenced at Inner London Crown Court after pleading guilty in September to conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation and transferring criminal property.

The fraud took place in November 2021, when criminals took control of victims’ telephone numbers to gain access to their cryptocurrency accounts by transferring the victim’s phone numbers to SIM cards controlled by the fraudsters. The criminals then intercepted one-time security codes sent by text message, allowing them to bypass account protections and access bank accounts and cryptocurrency wallets.