30s Summary
A man in Scottsdale, Arizona, impersonated an Uber driver and stole $300,000 in cryptocurrency from his passengers by convincing them to lend him their phones. Nuruhussein Hussein managed to transfer crypto from his riders’ Coinbase accounts into his own digital wallet. Hussein was arrested on December 11 and is facing charges for theft, fraud, and money laundering. A court restricted him from online activity and travel abroad while setting a $200,000 secured cash bond. There have been 19 cases of offline crypto theft globally in 2024.
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A guy pretending to be an Uber driver in Scottsdale, Arizona was recently busted after he apparently nicked $300,000 worth of crypto from two riders who were none the wiser. Based on a Dec. 12 news article, the local cops think this dude, Nuruhussein Hussein, tricked people waiting for Ubers outside the W Hotel in Scottsdale in March and October. He reportedly pretended to be their Uber driver and even knew their names.
Once the unsuspecting passengers were in the car, Hussein allegedly asked to borrow their phones since his was supposedly broken. In the second instance, he offered to fix the Uber app for the riders when they wondered why it showed their Uber hadn’t arrived yet.
The cops reckon Hussein then used the borrowed phones to transfer crypto out of the riders’ Coinbase accounts and into his own digital wallet. How he knew the names of the riders waiting for an Uber isn’t clear from the court documents.
According to the case prosecutors, when one of the victims got suspicious and asked for their phone back, Hussein threatened them, telling them to “chill or something bad would happen.”
Hussein got busted by some Scottsdale detectives and Secret Service agents on Dec. 11 and is facing charges for theft, fraud, and money laundering.
The prosecutors managed to convince a judge to set a $200,000 secured cash bond and to tag Hussein with an electronic monitor if he somehow manages to cough up the bond for his release. The investigation is still in process.
The court also restricted Hussein from online activity and travel abroad after the prosecutors put up a case highlighting the risk of him causing more trouble or possibly running away to Ethiopia, a place he visits quite a bit. He’s got another upcoming court date on Dec. 18.
According to GitHub, there have been at least 19 episodes of offline crypto robbery worldwide this past year, which is up from 17 in 2023 but down from 32 in 2021.
The most recent incident happened on Dec. 3, when thieves in Melbourne, Australia drove into a mall, took a Bitcoin ATM, and later left it to burn in a park.