A 23-year-old from Brooklyn has been sentenced to 12 years in prison after admitting to defrauding nearly 100 Coinbase users out of around $16 million through a phishing scheme, according to a New York district attorney.
Ronald Spektor executed a phishing and social engineering operation that lasted more than a year, during which he misled victims into believing their accounts had been compromised and convinced them to transfer funds to accounts he controlled, as stated by Eric Gonzalez, the district attorney.
Social engineering scams have emerged as a significant threat in the cryptocurrency space, with reports indicating that they constituted nearly 41% of all crypto security incidents in 2025. Earlier this month, a 22-year-old from Singapore pleaded guilty in connection with a criminal network that generated $245 million primarily through similar scams. A report from Chainalysis highlighted a worrying trend where criminals are increasingly targeting individual users rather than attacking infrastructure.
“Today’s sentencing holds the defendant accountable for a brazen, long-running social engineering scam that amounted to a digital robbery of nearly 100 victims,” Gonzalez remarked. He added that the efforts of the Virtual Currency Unit were crucial in gathering digital evidence that linked Spektor to the scheme and traced the stolen funds.
As part of his sentencing, authorities have also ordered Spektor to forfeit assets, including cash and cryptocurrency, valued at more than $500,000, and to pay almost $16 million in restitution.
The investigation revealed that Spektor laundered the stolen digital assets by exchanging them across various cryptocurrency platforms and consolidating them at cash-out points. He then converted the funds into other cryptocurrencies, placed bets, and eventually turned them into cash to purchase gift cards or further digital assets.
“Coinbase and most other companies will never call customers or ask them to transfer crypto to a ‘safe wallet.’ Don’t trust caller ID, sender names, or lookalike domains that can be spoofed,” Gonzalez warned, emphasizing that scammers often create a sense of urgency. He advised against rushing to move money.