Australian Woman Jailed for Theft of More Than 100,000 XRP
Sydney, Australia (Olga Kashubin/Shutterstock)
An Australian woman has been sentenced to over two years in prison for a major theft of the XRP cryptocurrency in January 2018.
- According to a report Tuesday by Australian news outlet Information Age, 25-year-old Kathryn Nguyen was sentenced to two years and three months by Judge Chris Craigie for hacking a victim’s wallet and making off with over 100,000 units of XRP.
- Nguyen and an associate infiltrated a 56-year-old man’s cryptocurrency account by swapping his two-factor authentication to her own mobile phone.
- She later transferred the stolen XRP to an unnamed exchange where it was traded for bitcoin before being distributed across multiple wallets.
- The funds are now worth just under US$30,000, but were reportedly exchanged at the cryptocurrency’s peak in early 2018 when they were worth up to around $300,000.
- Judge Craigie said the crime was “out of character” for Nguyen and that her “moral judgment was distorted” at the time.
- After an almost 12-month investigation, police raided Nguyen’s home in Epping, a suburb of Sydney, last year, seizing computers, mobile phones and money.
- Detective Superintendent Matthew Craft said reporting of cyber-related crime was a national issue and not solely that of the state of New South Wales.
- According to Information Age, Nguyen is the first Australian to be charged over the theft of cryptocurrencies.
Disclosure
The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.
