{"id":20229,"date":"2019-04-23T12:27:24","date_gmt":"2019-04-23T12:27:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ci027cfe69c00d2697"},"modified":"2019-04-23T12:27:24","modified_gmt":"2019-04-23T12:27:24","slug":"21-year-old-sim-swapping-mastermind-jailed-10-years1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/culture\/21-year-old-sim-swapping-mastermind-jailed-10-years1","title":{"rendered":"21-Year-Old SIM-Swapping Mastermind Is Jailed for 10 Years"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"bsf_rt_marker\"><\/div><figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/21-year-old-sim-swapping-mastermind-is-jailed-for-10-years.jpg\" title=\"\"><\/figure>\n<p>Joel Ortiz, the 21-year-old student who was accused of stealing over $7.5 million in digital assets via a SIM swapping operation, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison. He had pleaded guilty in February and <a href=\"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/articles\/hacker-gets-10-years-first-sim-swapping-sentencing-us\">accepted<\/a> the plea bargain.<\/p>\n<p>According to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sccgov.org\/sites\/da\/newsroom\/newsreleases\/Pages\/NRA2019\/Ortiz-Sentencing-.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">official documents<\/a> released on April 22, 2019, Ortiz was accused by the Santa Clara County\u2019 District Attorney\u2019s Office of hacking over 40 cellphones.<\/p>\n<p>The attorney\u2019s office labeled him a \u201cprolific SIM swapper,\u201d noting that in one of his operations, he succeeded in stealing over $5.2 million of his total loot within a matter of minutes from a California-based crypto entrepreneur.<\/p>\n<p>Ortiz was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vice.com\/en_us\/article\/gyaqnb\/hacker-joel-ortiz-sim-swapping-10-years-in-prison\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">arrested<\/a> last year at the Los Angeles International Airport; earlier this year, he pleaded no contest (not pleading guilty, but accepting the charges) to 10 separate charges of felony theft.<\/p>\n<p>The document also pointed out that the funds were used primarily to bankroll a lavish lifestyle; he spent $10,000 at various Los Angeles clubs, hired a helicopter for a music festival, and spent even more on branded clothes and luggage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A 21-year-old student who was accused of stealing over $7.5 million in digital assets via a SIM swapping operation has been sentenced to 10 years in prison.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3435,"featured_media":20230,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[3217],"class_list":{"0":"post-20229","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture","8":"tag-sim-swapping"},"author_data":{"id":3435,"name":"Jimmy Aki","nicename":"jimmy-aki","avatar_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/jimmy-aki-promo-image-96x96.jpg"},"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/21-year-old-sim-swapping-mastermind-is-jailed-for-10-years.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3435"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}