Brooklyn Man Boasted on Telegram, Lost $6M Gambling, Now Heads to Prison for $16M

A 23-year-old Brooklyn man who ran a social-engineering scheme that siphoned roughly $15.944 million from about 100 Coinbase users was sentenced on September 23, 2026, to between four and 12 years in prison, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez announced. Ronald Spektor, of Sheepshead Bay, pleaded guilty on September 2 to the full 31-count indictment covering first-degree grand larceny, first-degree money laundering and first-degree criminal possession of stolen property. Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun imposed the term over the objection of prosecutors, who had asked for seven to 21 years.

According to the District Attorney's Office, victims were first flooded with phone alerts, then received an email promising a follow-up call from the exchange, sometimes under the name "James Wilson." Callers identified themselves as Coinbase representatives and warned that a hacker had compromised the users' accounts. Believing they were securing their holdings, victims transferred crypto to wallets they believed remained under their sole control; in practice, those wallets were accessible to Spektor, who emptied them. The losses totaled $15,944,000 and stretched nationwide, with some users losing $1 million or more.

Investigators tied the scheme to Spektor using transaction records, blockchain analysis, digital forensics and material seized under several search warrants. They said his home IP address was linked to multiple wallets that had received stolen crypto. Independent blockchain investigator ZachXBT named him in a November 2024 thread, and prosecutors went on to interview 70 victims. A phone associated with Spektor held 12 wallets tied to at least 140 deposits traced back to 90 people, one of which held about $6.3 million.

Spektor also documented the operation in public. Under the handle @lolimfeelingevil, he ran a Telegram channel called "Blockchain enemies" where he reportedly bragged about the thefts, and used online forums to recruit others to act as social engineers, staging hacking attempts that looked real to victims. Messages recovered by investigators showed him writing in slang that he had lost $6 million in crypto gambling and suggesting he had made millions from scamming. After allegations began circulating online, he disposed of a hardware wallet, bought a replacement and told his helpers to swap out their equipment as well. He spent months moving around.

Funds were swapped repeatedly across exchanges before being consolidated at what the office described as cash-out points, where they were converted into other tokens, cash and gift cards, with large portions flowing to gambling services and online storefronts. Spektor's sentence also carries a forfeiture order covering cash, crypto and property valued at more than $500,000, along with restitution of nearly $16 million to the victims.