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An Uzbek man has been charged with the theft of $11.8 million in cryptocurrency
An Uzbek man extradited from Ukraine was arraigned Wednesday in Buffalo on federal charges of gaining unauthorized control of an individual’s cryptocurrency account worth nearly $12 million.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Nikita Sklyuev, 37, of Uzbekistan, is charged with wire fraud and fraudulent use of unauthorized access devices.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeremiah J. McCarthy unsealed a May 2021 indictment charging Sklyuev with deceiving a Western New York resident into purchasing a computer software application purportedly intended to serve as a cryptocurrency wallet.
Instead, the “malicious” software application was designed to steal the person’s private key to the digital account, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas AC Penrose, the prosecutor handling the case for the government.
According to Penrose, once the person entered his private key – similar to a password – onto his iPhone in 2018 for his cryptocurrency account, Sklyuev gained unauthorized access to the cryptocurrency wallet. Sklyuev changed the wallet’s private key, which caused the Western New York man to lose all control and access to his wallet.
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According to the prosecutor, in February 2019 Sklyuev transferred cryptocurrency from the wallet to numerous other online wallets that were under his control.
At the time, the cryptocurrency was valued at around $11.8 million.
The charges against Sklyuev, also known as Valeriy Dorojkin, carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Sklyuev is being held pending a detention hearing next week.
The hearing followed his extradition from Ukraine last week. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Justice Department’s Bureau of International Affairs worked with Romanian and Ukrainian authorities to secure his arrest and extradition.
Patrick Lakamp can be reached at plakamp@buffnews.com
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