Evan Frederick Light Pleads Guilty to Cyber Conspiracies That Stole $37 Million in Cryptocurrency

The U.S. Department of Justice announced on October 1st that Light unlawfully accessed the computer servers of an investment firm.

Evan Frederick Light, a 32-year-old Indiana resident, pleaded guilty on Monday to two counts of conspiracy for a large-scale crypto theft scam that targeted nearly 600 victims and resulted in losses exceeding $37 million.

Light's scheme involved a phishing and SIM-swapping technique to gain access to victims' personal accounts, including their crypto wallets. This enabled the conspirators to transfer substantial amounts of digital assets from the victims' wallets.

According to the plea agreement, Light and his co-conspirators targeted victims in several states, including Indiana, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin.

The conspirators used phishing emails and text messages to trick victims into providing their personal information, such as usernames, passwords, and two-factor authentication codes. They also used a technique called SIM-swapping to gain control of victims' phone numbers and intercept text messages containing the two-factor authentication codes.

Once the conspirators gained access to the victims' personal accounts, they used the information to reset the passwords for the victims' crypto wallets and then transferred the digital assets to wallets controlled by the conspirators.

In total, the conspirators stole approximately $37,233,333 in cryptocurrency from the victims. The stolen cryptocurrency included Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, XRP, and several stablecoins pegged to the U.S. dollar.

Light faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for each count of conspiracy to which he pleaded guilty. The Court will determine the specific sentence at a later hearing.

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