The announcement revealing the charges explains that the 5 charges used — “phishing text messages and then used the harvested employee credentials to log in and steal non-public company data and information and to hack into virtual currency accounts to steal millions of dollars in cryptocurrency.”

The defendants have been identified as

Ahmed Hossam Eldin Elbadawy, 23, a.k.a. “AD,” of College Station, Texas; Noah Michael Urban, 20, a.k.a. “Sosa” and “Elijah,” of Palm Coast, Florida; Evans Onyeaka Osiebo, 20, of Dallas, Texas; and Joel Martin Evans, 25, a.k.a. “joeleoli,” of Jacksonville, North Carolina. Tyler Robert Buchanan, 22, from the United Kingdom.

The charges levied against them include — conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft. The accused face jail time of over 20 years each.

Akil Davis, the Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office, was unsympathetic in describing the defendants who are believed to have stolen personal information to try and access cryptocurrency accounts— “These types of fraudulent solicitations are ubiquitous and rob American victims of their hard-earned money with the click of a mouse. I’m proud of our stellar cyber agents whose work led to the identification of the alleged schemers who are facing significant prison time if convicted.”

Phishing is a form of online social engineering fraud where attackers deceive individuals into revealing sensitive information. It has become highly common for employees of cryptocurrency firms and known crypto investors to be targeted by phishing scammers because of the view that they may possess access to cryptocurrency wallets or crypto exchange accounts.