Canadian Man Sentenced To 25 Months In $13M Crypto Impersonation Theft

A federal judge in Miami sentenced Trenton Johnston, a 20-year-old Canadian, to 25 months in prison on October 26, according to Cryptopolitan, in a case involving about $13 million in stolen cryptocurrency. Johnston pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. The sentence was below the 51 to 63 months prosecutors recommended. According to Homeland Security Investigations, Johnston and co-conspirators targeted victims by posing as crypto firm support staff and Google representatives. Reports say Johnston began in January 2024, impersonating Google technical support and cryptocurrency company representatives to persuade holders to share wallet access codes. No contract addresses or transaction hashes were provided in the source material. A heist on March 13 took about 185 BTC from a California victim, worth close to $13 million at the time. According to court documents cited by CoinEdition, the holdings represented the victim's life savings. Prosecutors described spending that included a Lamborghini Aventador SVJ, two BMWs, jewelry and a private jet rental. Authorities recovered only about $3.8 million, less than a third of the at least $13.04 million attributed to him, and the complaint noted nothing had been recovered from the 185 BTC theft. No on-chain data was supplied to verify the transfers independently. Johnston surrendered about $3.8 million in Bitcoin and Ether after his arrest, and his defense attorney said this was all the stolen cryptocurrency in his possession. His lawyer, Brooke C. Watson, said the lighter sentence reflected that he quickly admitted his conduct and was tremendously sorry. He still faces a Florida drug possession charge and accepted a removal order from a U.S. immigration judge in April, and faces deportation to Canada after his term. Co-defendant Brandon Michael Tardibone, who also pleaded guilty, faces a recommended 27 to 33 months. It is unclear whether the court has approved a recovery plan for victims. Readers can reduce exposure to support impersonation schemes by never sharing wallet seed phrases, recovery codes or access credentials with anyone, regardless of claimed affiliation with Google or a crypto company. Legitimate support teams do not ask for them. Contact providers only through official channels you navigate to yourself, treat unsolicited calls or messages as suspect, and use hardware wallets and multi-factor authentication to limit the impact of a single compromised credential.