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Jacksonville, Florida – Noah Michael Urban, aka “Sosa,” “Elijah,” “King Bob,” and “Anthony Ramirez,” 19, of Palm Coast, has been indicted on multiple charges including one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, eight counts of wire fraud, and five counts of aggravated identity theft, all stemming from his involvement in a multifaceted cryptocurrency scheme.

Key Points

• The indictment traces Urban's actions from August 2022 to March 2023, resulting in the theft of at least $800,000 from five victims.
• Urban, in conspiracy with others, both known and unknown, aimed to defraud individual victims and Virtual Currency Exchanges (VCEs) to steal virtual currency.
• The conspirators unlawfully obtained personally identifying information (PII) of victims and used it to fraudulently access VCE accounts.
• Urban and his co-conspirators arranged for victims' phone numbers to be swapped to phones they controlled, enabling them to gain access to various online and cryptocurrency exchange accounts.
• The group transferred cryptocurrency from victims' accounts to wallets controlled by Urban or others in the scheme. Urban and his co-conspirators used interstate and foreign wire communications as part of their operation.
• Specific instances of Urban's illegal activities include accessing victims' email accounts and transferring substantial amounts of Ethereum and Bitcoin to his Exodus wallet on several occasions between October and December 2022, and February 2023.
• Each count of Urban's indictment details specific offenses, such as accessing victims' email and VCE accounts and transferring cryptocurrencies. The transactions include 182.1991 Ethereum (valued around $294,797), 1.39 Bitcoin (about $21,952), 2.199462 Bitcoin (approximately $37,742), 82.8784 Ethereum (near $107,230), and 219.2683 Ethereum (close to $374,614).
• If convicted, he faces a potential sentence of up to 20 years in federal prison for each wire fraud charge, and a minimum mandatory penalty of 2 years for the aggravated identity theft offenses, which would be consecutive to any other prison sentence.