Michael Terpin Awarded Over $75 Million in Sim-Swapping Crypto Theft Case

By Prashant Jha

We had earlier reported how Michael Terpin, a well-known blockchain and crypto investor, of the BitAngels, had filed a lawsuit against 21-year-old Nicholas Truglia for having defrauded him of his digital assets. Recently, the judgement was announced for this civil case and in a very profitable victory, Terpin was awarded a whopping $75.8 million.

As per the report published by top news agency Reuters, Truglia, a resident of Manhattan, was directed by the California Superior Court to pay that massive amount to Terpin in lieu of compensation as well as punitive damages. As the Reuters report points out, this amount is one of the largest court-ruled damages to be awarded to any individual in a crypto case till date.

Terpin had filed his complaint against Nicholas Truglia back in December 2018. Before that, he had also filed a case against telecom operator AT&T in August of last year. Terpin had accused the operator of alleged negligence which, according to him, allowed Truglia to break into the account connected to Terpin’s phone number and steal crypto assets worth nearly 24 million dollars.

Truglia and his other associates allegedly took control of his phone number first, and then gained access to his online accounts. Then, they proceeded to change his passwords so that they could take over his crypto assets. Truglia has been arrested earlier also, for having stolen 1 million dollars worth of crypto, with the same sim swapping modus operandi.

This judgement is expected to go down in history as a landmark judgement in crypto cases, suggesting that the judiciary would be quite harsh in dealing with all crypto-related cases and sim swapping scams of this kind.

Prashant Jha

As a content writer Prashant believes in presenting complex topics in simple laymen terms. He is a tech enthusiast and an avid reader.

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