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A hacker from Australia was sentenced to a maximum of 2 years and 3 months in prison for stealing cryptocurrency two years ago. The hacker, a 25-year-old woman from Sydney, reportedly stole $300 thousand worth of the XRP crypto from a 56-year old man two years ago.
A judge sentenced 25-year old Sydney resident Katheryn Nguyen to spend time in prison after the latter was found guilty of stealing 100,000 XRP tokens in January of 2018, according to Cointelegraph. Nguyen was able to steal the XRP token, which belonged to a 56-year-old man, with the help of an accomplice.
Working with her accomplice, Nguyen hacked into the victim's email and changed his crypto wallet’s two-factor authentication code by nominating her phone number, according to Bitcoin.com. This allowed Nguyen to have access to the victim’s crypto holding.
At the time of the hack, the stolen 100,000 XRP tokens were worth almost $300,000 as it was trading at $2.84. These days, however, the value of the XRP tokens will only be $30,000 since the crypto’s price has fallen to around $0.30.
After seizing control of the cryptocurrency, Nguyen sent the XRP tokens to a Chinese crypto exchange. She later changed the XRP tokens to Bitcoins (BTC) and sent them to different crypto wallets.
Nguyen was investigated by the police for a year after the victim reported that he was locked out of his crypto account. She was arrested in 2018 while her computer, mobile phones, and cash were seized by Australian authorities.
In August 2019, she was officially charged but immediately pleaded guilty to the charges. Nguyen became the first person charged and jailed for cryptocurrency theft in the country. Unfortunately, Chinese authorities only recovered $9,000.
Judge Chris Craigie described the crime as out of character for Ngyuen whose moral judgment was distorted at the time. “A common thread was the offender’s willingness to help others,” Judge Craigie said.
“This takes on a different meaning in her willingly participating and assisting in a criminal enterprise,” the judge added. Nguyen will be eligible for parole in October 2021.
