Hamilton police have arrested a Canadian teenager for stealing C$46 million ($36.5 million) in cryptocurrency from an American victim, the largest single-person crypto-asset heist.
Police said the victim was targeted through a phone scam known as SIM swapping, in which a fraudster wirelessly hijacks a customer's phone number to intercept two-factor authentication requests and gain access to the victim's accounts.
The Hamilton Police Department said in a statement that the arrest was the result of a joint investigation with the FBI and the US Secret Service's Cybercrime Task Force.
Police confiscated cryptocurrency currently valued at more than C$7 million.
In a statement, police said some of the stolen cryptocurrency was used to purchase a rare username for online games, which ultimately led investigators to reveal the identity of the account holder.
