$15M Crypto Fraud Case: Brooklyn Man Accused of Posing as Coinbase Support

A Brooklyn man, who is 23 years old, has been accused of committing a large-scale cryptocurrency fraud after the prosecutor alleged that he had stolen close to 15 million dollars posing as a customer support person at Coinbase and defrauding users in the United States.

Prosecutors claim that Ronald Spektor contacted Coinbase users between April 2023 and December 2025 and falsely claimed that their accounts were in danger of unauthorized access. Victims were urged to take immediate action to “secure” their funds, a tactic investigators say was designed to prevent them from verifying the legitimacy of the calls.

As part of the scam, victims were asked to share their crypto wallet seed phrases, believing they were protecting their accounts. Authorities say Spektor used these recovery phrases to gain full access to the victims’ wallets, transferring cryptocurrency without permission, often within minutes.

The scheme reportedly affected around 100 victims nationwide, with losses ranging from smaller crypto holdings to multi-million-dollar thefts. In one instance, a single victim allegedly lost more than $6 million. Investigators traced over $5 million of the stolen cryptocurrency to online gambling platforms, while other funds were moved through crypto swap services to obscure their origin and make recovery more difficult.

Spektor has been indicted for the crimes of grand larceny, money laundering, possession of criminal property, and possession of another person’s personal identifying information. Spektor is currently in jail at Rikers Island on bail of $500,000 cash or bail of $1 million. Spektor has pleaded not guilty to the crimes he has been accused of.

Experts stress the point that a reputable or genuine cryptocurrency exchange will never ask for a seed phrase. The police state that the Coinbase crypto imposter scams and support scams are among the quickest-growing scams targeting people with digital assets.