Police have arrested a faux Uber driver who’s accusing of stealing greater than $300,000 in cryptocurrency from unwitting passengers.
Officers in Scottsdale, Arizona, a desert metropolis east of Phoenix, apprehended Nuruhussein Hussein, 40, on Wednesday on felony prices of theft, fraud and cash laundering, Scottsdale Police Department mentioned in an announcement.
In a joint operation with the United States Secret Service discipline workplace in Phoenix, police mentioned they discovered that between March and December this 12 months the suspect pretended to be an Uber driver and picked up unsuspecting prospects who had ordered an actual trip outdoors a resort in Scottsdale.
Police mentioned Hussein would then ask to make use of the sufferer’s cellphone, on the pretense of needing to search for instructions or hook up with the Uber app.
“While manipulating the unsuspecting sufferer’s cellphone the suspect transferred cryptocurrency from their digital pockets to his digital pockets,” police mentioned in an announcement.
The suspect was booked into Maricopa County Jail and each police and the Secret Service are persevering with their investigation. He was charged with two counts of cash laundering, two counts of fraudulent schemes and two counts of theft. He appeared in court docket for a bond listening to Wednesday and is because of seem once more on Dec. 18.
The court docket heard Wednesday that he advised one alleged sufferer to “chill or one thing unhealthy would occur.”
A $200,000 bond was positioned on him and prosecutors advised the court docket that the suspect usually travels to Ethiopia and was a flight threat. The phrases of the bond embody fixed digital monitoring, a ban on all web use and to remain in Maricopa County.
Cryptocurrency fraud, a fast-growing and profitable crime, is a big concern to legislation enforcement authorities. People throughout the U.S. made greater than 69,000 complaints and reported shedding $5.6 billion to this type of fraud in 2023, the FBI mentioned.
The true determine is probably going many occasions greater because of the reluctance of some victims to contact authorities.
More than 16,000 complaints of cryptocurrency fraud got here from individuals over 60, in accordance with the FBI’s first Cryptocurrency Fraud Report, launched in September.
Arrests associated to cryptocurrency scams are comparatively uncommon. Four accused rip-off artists, three from Southern California and one from suburban Chicago, have been charged in an alleged so-called “pig butchering” scheme final December that persuaded victims to half with greater than $80 million, officers mentioned Thursday.