Hacker's Sentence Skyrockets from 18 Months to 12 Years in Crypto Heist Fallout

Nicholas Truglia, the notorious hacker behind a 2018 SIM-swap scam, just got slammed with a brutal 12-year prison sentence after failing to cough up $20 million in restitution to his victim.

A New York federal judge dropped the hammer on July 10, cranking Truglia's sentence up from a mere 18 months to a staggering 12 years after he blew off the court-ordered payout to crypto bigwig Michael Terpin.

This new sentence blows the federal guidelines out of the water, soaring more than eight times higher than the original. The law usually suggests an extended stint between 51 and 63 months, but not for this guy.

Turns out, Truglia was caught red-handed shuffling his stolen loot around, converting it to Bitcoin (BTC), and pocketing a nice chunk for himself. A chilling video surfaced of him, voice masked, bragging about keeping his ill-gotten crypto even after a decade behind bars. That video sealed the deal for the judge, who decided 12 years was more fitting.

"If ten years are okay, I'll be sentencing you to twelve [years]," declared Senior Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, dropping the mic.

Judge Hellerstein laid it out: Truglia's heading to the Metropolitan Detention Center, spending a lonely night in solitary, then straight back to the Southern District of New York courthouse before being shipped off to a correctional center in Essex.

Nicholas Truglia's Arrest Chronology

After serving just 12 months, Truglia walked out of prison with a simple condition: pay back the $20 million he stole from Michael Terpin. Spoiler alert: he didn't.

Fast forward to May 2023, and Truglia's back in cuffs, nabbed for violating his supervised release. The evidence? He was caught shuffling his crypto stash and splurging on luxury goods.

Despite a contempt order, Truglia got another shot at freedom in November 2024. The judge let him loose on the condition he'd pay up that $20 million. Guess what? He didn't, and he kept about $673,000 for himself from the cuts he made.

Back in December 2022, the then-25-year-old Truglia was sentenced to 18 months for masterminding a SIM swap crypto scam that drained over $20 million from Terpin's accounts.

How'd he pull it off? By hijacking Terpin's phone number with a SIM card he controlled, Truglia waltzed right into the victim's emails and other accounts, swiping everything in sight.