Crypto.com Accidentally Sent a Couple $10 Million; Later Found Guilty of Theft
Centralised exchange. Crypto.com accidentally returned a man $6.8 million (about $10.47 million Australian dollars) rather than $65. He then withdrew and wasted his money. Three years later, he and his accomplice pleaded guilty to the theft of $4.42 million, as reported by NewsWire.
Jatinder Singh attempted to deposit $65 into his Crypto.com account in May 2021, using his partner’s bank account. Crypto.com denied the deposit since the names on the exchange and bank account were different.
Instead of just returning $65 to his bank account, the exchange staffer made a “significant account mistake” and entered Singh’s partner’s account number, leading to a $4.42 million refund. This is not the first time that Crypto.com has sent money to the wrong address; in August 2022, a woman who owed the exchange $100 was sent $10.5 million instead, and she went on a spending spree; eventually, the company dragged her and her sister to court. Later that year, the exchange sent $400 million worth of Ethereum to the wrong address. In Singh’s case, the Crypto.com error wasn’t discovered until seven months later during an internal audit. However, by then, Singh and his partner, Thevamanogari Manivel, had already spent a large portion of the funds; they gifted a friend $650,000, purchased two homes and two blocks of land in Melbourne, Australia, and told Manivel to withdraw the money so that the transaction wouldn’t be reversed (Singh later said that he honestly thought the couple had won a raffle). After Crypto.com realised its error, it contacted Commonwealth Bank, which notified Manivel that the funds needed to be returned; despite her suspicions that it was a scam, she transferred $2.6 million to her bank account. Manivel was subsequently arrested.
when travelling to Malaysia in March 2022 on a one-way flight.
Singh admitted to stealing $4.42 million in front of the Australian Victorian County Court. Singh’s attorney asserted that Singh was unaware of the gravity of his acts. This month’s sentence is still pending for him.
Manivel, however, received a 209-day prison sentence. However, after the pair spent nearly a year on remand, the court deemed her prison sentence to have already been served. In addition, she was given an 18-month community corrections order the previous year after entering a guilty plea to carelessly handling criminal proceeds.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
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