An Australian court has ordered local citizen Kathryn Nguyen to a maximum time of 2 years and 3 months in prison for her role in stealing more than 100,000 XRP tokens in January 2018. According to the Information Age report, Nguyen was sentenced over the theft of more than $300,000 in XRP two years ago. She was initially charged in Oct. 2018 and pled guilty to fraud charges the following August.
Nguyen is the first person to be charged with the theft of crypto assets in Australia.
The judge presiding over Nguyen’s case, Chris Craigie, said it was a “difficult and troubling decision” to send her to prison. However, she will reportedly be eligible for parole in October 2021. Nguyen was one of the first people to be charged with the theft of crypto assets in Australia. In January 2018, Nguyen reportedly hacked into the email of a 56-year-old man with the same last name as her and stole all his XRP holdings before releasing control of the account two days later. This was at a time when Ripple’s XRP was near its all-time high of $3.84.
Crypto scams continue to rise amid the pandemic.
Crypto scams have increased around the world amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Earlier this year, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation had issued a warning saying scammers might be looking to unleash a surge in crypto-related scams. Countries across the world have reported a rise in cryptocurrency scams that included a spike in ransomware attacks, Ponzi schemes, and other different types of scams involving cryptocurrencies. Earlier, the Attorney General of state California, Xavier Becerra, issued a warning for investors and consumers on Friday, highlighting the rise in cryptocurrency scams. The Attorney General of California outlined a host of ways that scammers have used cryptocurrencies in the past.
