Nicholas Truglia’s Lengthened Sentence
Nicholas Truglia, a convicted crypto fraudster, saw his prison sentence significantly lengthened on Thursday, moving from an initial 18-month term to 12 years after he neglected to repay a victim from his 2018 scheme. Michael Terpin, the CEO of Transform Group and an investor in cryptocurrency, was defrauded of over $20 million by Truglia, as reported by Bloomberg.
Failure to Comply with Restitution
In July, Judge Alvin Hellerstein issued an order highlighting Truglia’s lack of compliance with the financial restitution mandated by the court. Despite his earlier claims of willingness to refund Terpin for the entirety of the stolen funds, he repeatedly failed to make any payments, effectively avoiding both judicial and law enforcement efforts to secure the restitution.
The court’s ruling pointed out that Truglia had previously been found to possess assets exceeding $61 million, far surpassing the amount owed to his victim. Judge Hellerstein emphasized,
“At every turn, Mr. Truglia failed to pay restitution,”
which raises questions about his authenticity in claiming a desire to repay.
Details of the Conviction
Originally, Truglia’s sentence also included three years of supervised release, alongside his prison term. His conviction stemmed from a sophisticated SIM-swapping scheme that allowed him to gain control of Terpin’s mobile phone and ultimately steal his cryptocurrency holdings. This method involves unlawfully transferring a victim’s phone number to a different SIM card, thereby intercepting authentication messages from services like cryptocurrency exchanges that rely on that number for identity verification.
Legal Actions and Financial Damages
Truglia’s criminal activities came to light when he was arrested for targeting cryptocurrency investors in California’s San Francisco Bay Area. That same year saw Terpin initiate legal action against his former wireless carrier, AT&T, for negligence in permitting the cyber intrusion. In total, Terpin lost $24 million due to the SIM-swapping incident and later pursued a civil suit against Truglia, winning a $75 million judgement in 2019—a clear indication of the significant financial damages inflicted by the scammer.
