Two teenagers from Hamilton, Canada, have found themselves on the wrong side of the law, implicated in a multi-million-dollar cryptocurrency scam.

According to the news report shared by the news portal CBC, the 17-year-old teens are facing charges of theft and possession of unlawfully acquired property.

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In particular, it is believed that the teenagers manipulated a US resident and stole $4.2 million in Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) via a refined form of fraud known as “spear phishing.”

Spear phishing is a scam technique that targets specific individuals, with perpetrators presenting themselves as trustworthy entities and requesting confidential data from victims, which can then be used to compromise their accounts. 

In this sophisticated scam, the youthful offenders pretended to be Coinbase Support, successfully tricking their victim and gaining illicit access to his cryptocurrency portfolio.

Interestingly, a portion of the ill-gotten proceeds was reportedly used to secure the Instagram handle “@Zombie,” which holds significant appeal within the gaming community. Astonishingly, when the pair were arrested, their crypto asset holdings totaled to a whopping $13.4 million.

This multi-agency investigation, launched last month, was led by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and the United States Secret Service Electronic Crimes Task Force.

As the crypto industry continues to flourish, it has unfortunately been accompanied by a surge in crypto-related criminal activities, with news of large-scale crypto heists becoming a distressingly frequent occurrence.

At the end of June, the Web3 portfolio app De.Fi published a report revealing that during the second quarter of 2023, the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem witnessed a concerning wave of scams and hacks, with losses reaching over $204 million.

The arrest of these Canadian teenagers is a stark reminder of the significant threats associated with cryptocurrency misuse. As digital currencies continue to gain traction, it is imperative to bolster regulatory oversight and enforcement efforts to safeguard the legal and safe use of these revolutionary financial tools.