Brooklyn man arrested for impersonating Coinbase customer service in $15 million cryptocurrency scam

23-year-old Brooklyn resident Ronald Spektor was arrested for perpetrating a large-scale scam by impersonating a Coinbase customer service representative. He is currently being held at Rikers Island jail, with bail set at $500,000 cash or $1 million bond.

According to prosecutors, Spektor began contacting approximately 100 Coinbase users by phone starting in April 2023, falsely claiming that their assets were at risk and needed to be transferred to a "new wallet" for protection. After gaining the victims' trust, he obtained their seed phrases (a sequence of 12 to 24 words equivalent to a password), resulting in the immediate transfer of cryptocurrency to accounts controlled by the suspect. Investigations revealed that users in California alone lost over $6 million and $1 million. More than $5 million of the stolen funds were traced to the suspect's online gambling accounts, while the remainder was converted to cash or laundered through cryptocurrency exchange services.

Law enforcement discovered a wealth of evidence on the suspect's phone, including conversations where he boasted about making millions from the scam on the Discord platform, as well as communications with his parents discussing how to hide the proceeds of his crimes. Spektor faces multiple charges, including felony theft and money laundering, each carrying a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison. His attorney, Todd Spodek, stated that the suspect has pleaded not guilty to all charges and claimed that these allegations are "based on incomplete information."