For the first time, an Australian national has been charged for engaging in digital currency theft, which precisely involved Ripple (XRP), the third-largest cryptocurrency. She conducted the XRP theft with an associate when the cryptocurrency was above $4. Now, she will be facing a two-year jail term for stealing the cryptocurrencies.
Australian commits 100,000 XRP theft
A report on Tuesday by an Australian news outlet, Information Age, disclosed that a native female hacker would be sent to prison for the role she played in an XRP theft over the past two years. The 25-year-old Kathryn Nguyen conducted the attack together with an associate, whose details were not disclosed in the report.
Precisely in January 2018, the duo hacked into a digital currency account, which belonged to a 56-year-old man. Despite the two-factor authentication enabled in the account, they were able to swap it to their mobile phone. With the access, Nguyen and the associate transferred a huge amount of XRP cryptocurrency to foreign exchanges.
According to the report, they made away with $400,000 in the XRP theft, as the cryptocurrencies were traded at $4 per coin. Perhaps, the incident occurred during the crypto’s boom. The same number of stolen XRPs will be worth $30,000, following the current price of the cryptocurrency at $0.30 at the time writing.
Nguyen sentence
The Australian Police began an investigation into Nguyen amid the XRP theft after the affected man reported that he was locked out from his cryptocurrency account. Her house was raided by the Police last year, and they confiscated her mobile phones, computers, and cash, according to the report.
Nguyen will face a maximum sentence of two years and three months in prison. Chris Craigie, the presiding Judge, admitted that her sentencing was a hard decision to make. Nguyen’s references painted her to be generous and hardworking. Craigie added:
A common thread was the offender’s willingness to help others. This takes on a different meaning in her willingly participating and assisting in a criminal enterprise.
