A 23-year-old Sheepshead Bay resident has been sent to prison after admitting he ran a yearlong social engineering operation that drained nearly $16 million from Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN) customers across the United States.
Ronald Spektor received an indeterminate term of four to 12 years on September 23, 2026, from Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun.
The sentence followed his September 2 guilty plea to all 31 counts in a state indictment, including first-degree grand larceny, first-degree money laundering, and first-degree criminal possession of stolen property.
Prosecutors had asked for seven to 21 years.
Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said the case was developed by the office’s Virtual Currency Unit after investigators traced a phishing campaign that cost about 100 US-based Coinbase users approximately $15.94 million. Spektor contacted customers while posing as exchange support staff.
He told them a hacker had compromised their accounts and that they needed to move assets immediately into a new wallet for protection.
Victims who followed those instructions sent funds to addresses they believed they alone controlled.
In reality, Spektor could access the wallets and empty them.
Once the coins were under his control, investigators say he moved them through a series of exchanges, mixing services, and cryptocurrency gambling platforms before converting portions into cash, gift cards, or other digital assets.
Blockchain analysis, IP records, and material seized under search warrants tied multiple stolen-fund wallets to Spektor’s home internet connection. He lived with his father in Brooklyn.
Messages recovered from encrypted apps showed him recruiting helpers to impersonate hackers or support staff and boasting about the proceeds.
On Telegram, under the handle @lolimfeelingevil, he operated a channel titled “Blockchain enemies.” In those chats he used slang to claim he had lost $6 million gambling while making millions more through scams. After online accusations surfaced, texts from his phone indicated he discarded a hardware wallet and bought a replacement.
Victims lived in states across the country and came from varied backgrounds. Several reported losses of $1 million or more.
The court ordered Spektor to forfeit cash, cryptocurrency, and personal property valued at more than $500,000 and to pay restitution of nearly $16 million.
Earlier in the investigation, authorities had already seized about $105,000 in cash and roughly $400,000 in digital assets.
Coinbase cooperated with the Virtual Currency Unit to identify accounts and follow the money.
Gonzalez described the operation as a “digital robbery” and said the unit assembled “iron-clad evidence” by following transaction trails.
He used the sentencing to warn others who target exchange customers that investigators will pursue on-chain activity wherever it leads.
The office also issued basic precautions: Coinbase and similar firms do not call customers to demand that they move crypto into a “safe wallet”; caller ID and lookalike domains can be faked; and pressure to act immediately is a hallmark of these schemes.
Independent verification, the DA said, remains the most reliable defense.
The civil forfeiture work was handled by Senior Assistant District Attorney Joel Greenwald. Assistant District Attorney Alona Katz, chief of the Virtual Currency Unit, led the criminal investigation with analysts and detective investigators from the Kings County District Attorney’s Office