Three men who impersonated police officers to steal over £4 million in cryptocurrency from unsuspecting victims have been sentenced at Southwark Crown Court. Anthony Ikenwe, Hamza Bashir, and Kevin Nwamma ran a sophisticated social engineering operation that preyed on crypto holders’ fears about the safety of their digital assets.
The sentences were not gentle. Ikenwe received 11 years in prison, Nwamma also got 11 years, and Bashir was handed 7 years and 9 months for their respective roles in the fraud and money laundering scheme.
The playbook: fake badges, fake websites, real panic
The scheme worked like this. The trio would cold-call victims, posing as law enforcement officers, and warn them that their crypto holdings were somehow at risk. To sell the ruse, they built convincing fake websites designed to look like legitimate police portals and cryptocurrency platforms. Victims were directed to these sites, where they unknowingly handed over sensitive credentials. From there, the fraudsters gained access to wallets and transferred the assets out.
The operation targeted at least eight known victims, though investigators believe the actual number could be significantly higher. The gang sourced victim information from the dark web and coordinated their operations through Snapchat.
