Brooklyn Court Sentences Crypto Impersonator Who Drained Nearly 100 Coinbase Accounts

A 23-year-old Sheepshead Bay resident has been sent to prison after admitting he ran a yearlong social engineering operation that drained nearly $16 million from Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN) customers across the United States.

Ronald Spektor received an indeterminate term of four to 12 years on September 23, 2026, from Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun.

The sentence followed his September 2 guilty plea to all 31 counts in a state indictment, including first-degree grand larceny, first-degree money laundering, and first-degree criminal possession of stolen property.

Prosecutors had asked for seven to 21 years.

Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said the case was developed by the office’s Virtual Currency Unit after investigators traced a phishing campaign that cost about 100 US-based Coinbase users approximately $15.94 million. Spektor contacted customers while posing as exchange support staff.

He told them a hacker had compromised their accounts and that they needed to move assets immediately into a new wallet for protection.

Victims who followed those instructions sent funds to addresses they believed they alone controlled.

In reality, Spektor could access the wallets and empty them.