A Brockton man pleaded guilty Wednesday to operating a nationwide scheme to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency and social media accounts using a practice known as SIM-swapping, officials said.
Eric Meiggs, 23, and at least one other co-conspirator stole more than $530,000 from at least 10 victims, the US attorney’s office said in a statement. He took control of two victims’ social media accounts. They targeted victims who appeared to have significant amounts of cryptocurrency and high value social media account names, the statement said.
SIM-swapping involves convincing a victim’s cell phone carrier to reassign the phone number from their SIM card to a SIM card inside a phone controlled by the cybercriminals, the statement said. Posing as the victim, they then request an online account provider to send a password-reset link or authentication code to the phone number, reset the log-in credentials, and access the victim’s account, the statement said.