Daniel James Junk (22) of Portland was sentenced to 72 months in federal prison for his role in a scheme that resulted in the theft of millions of dollars of cryptocurrency using a SIM swapping.

The man conducted SIM swapping attacks to take control of victims’ phone numbers tricking the mobile operator employees into porting them to SIMs under the control of the fraudster. Once hijacked a SIM, the attacker can steal money, cryptocurrencies and personal information, including contacts synced with online accounts. The criminals could hijack social media accounts and bypass 2FA services based on SMS used by online services, including financial ones.