Brooklyn Man Gets 12-Year Sentence for $16M Coinbase Phishing Scam

Coinbase phishing scam — A New York man has been sentenced to 12 years in prison after pleading guilty to orchestrating a phishing scam that stole $16 million from Coinbase users.

Ronald Spektor, 23, of Brooklyn, posed as a Coinbase representative and convinced victims their accounts were under threat, socially engineering them to transfer cryptocurrency to a wallet he controlled. The Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office said Spektor then laundered the stolen funds through swapping services and crypto gambling sites, with some individual losses exceeding $1 million.

Investigators from the DA’s Virtual Currency Unit linked Spektor’s home IP address to victim wallets and found evidence he recruited accomplices online and bragged about the thefts on Telegram under the handle “@lolimfeelingevil.” In messages, he claimed to have gambled away $6 million of the stolen crypto.

Spektor pleaded guilty on September 2 to all 31 counts, including first-degree money laundering and grand larceny. Despite prosecutors seeking a sentence between 7 and 21 years, Justice Danny Chun imposed the 12-year term. Spektor was also ordered to forfeit over $500,000 in assets and pay nearly $16 million in restitution.