Nicholas Truglia has had his prison sentence increased to 12 years for his role in a US$22 million cryptocurrency theft.

The decision was made by US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein on July 10, 2025 after Truglia failed to comply with a restitution agreement to pay US$20.4 million to the victim.

Truglia pleaded guilty in 2021 to participating in a scheme against Michael Terpin, CEO of Transform Group, a blockchain advisory firm.

The scheme involved tricking telecom employees into transferring Terpin’s phone number to a SIM card controlled by the hackers.

This allowed access to his cryptocurrency accounts.

Truglia was tasked with converting the stolen funds into bitcoin.

🔗 Source: Bloomberg

🧠 Food for thought

1️⃣ SIM swapping represents a growing threat in the evolving landscape of cryptocurrency theft

The Truglia case highlights how cryptocurrency theft has evolved beyond direct hacking to include social engineering attacks like SIM swapping, where criminals gain control of victims’ phone numbers to access their digital assets.

This method has become increasingly prevalent, with the FBI reporting over 69,000 cryptocurrency fraud complaints in 2023 alone, resulting in estimated losses exceeding $5.6 billion 1.

Criminals have shifted their tactics from targeting exchanges to targeting individual holders, with phone-port attacks becoming a common method where hackers impersonate victims to gain access to their phone numbers and subsequently their cryptocurrency accounts 2.

The sophistication of these attacks continues to increase, with 231 individual hacking incidents reported in 2023, demonstrating how criminal organizations are adapting their techniques despite enhanced security measures 3.

The Truglia case specifically shows how these criminals operate in organized rings with specialized roles, from those who trick telecom employees to those who convert stolen tokens into different cryptocurrencies to obscure the trail.

2️⃣ Cryptocurrency theft victims face significant challenges in recovering their losses

Despite court-ordered restitution, victims of cryptocurrency theft often struggle to recover their assets, as demonstrated by Truglia’s failure to pay the $20.4 million despite allegedly having $53 million in assets.