JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A 19-year-old Flagler County man accused of stealing at least $800,000 from five different people in a cryptocurrency scheme was in federal court Friday afternoon.
According to a federal indictment, between August 2022 and March 2023, Noah Urban, also known as “King Bob,” stole victims’ personal information and arranged for the victims’ cellphone numbers to be swapped to phones that Urban and the other conspirators controlled. They would then use that to get control of the victims’ cryptocurrency accounts by resetting passwords and confirming via text message passwords.
That’s something known as “SIM swapping,” according to the FBI.
In court, Urban’s parents were called for questioning. Both said they would be willing to be third-party custodians if the judge decided to release him before the trial. The judge decided to keep Urban in jail because he believed Urban was a serious flight risk and was concerned that he might obstruct justice.
The indictment said Urban would then take cryptocurrency from the victims’ crypto exchange accounts and transfer it to his crypto wallet.
Urban was arrested last week in Volusia County and charged with the cryptocurrency scheme and five counts of aggravated identity theft. Friday will be the first day he’s in court. His detention hearing was put off because he had COVID.
If convicted of the cryptocurrency scheme, Urban faces up to 20 years in federal prison on each wire fraud charge. He also faces a minimum mandatory penalty of 2 years in prison for the aggravated identity offenses, which will run consecutive to any other prison sentence imposed.
But Urban isn’t just an accused crypto thief, according to reports.
The indictment said one of Urban’s aliases is “King Bob,” a reference to the “Minions” movie, and according to multiple reports, King Bob is also a notorious music leaker who has been linked to leaking the unreleased music of huge artists like Playboi Carti, Ariana Grande and Lil Uzi Vert. Those accusations were not included in the indictment and News4JAX was not able to independently verify the reports.
Ariana Grande reacts to more of her music being leaked and shared online:
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) September 14, 2023
“this is so disheartening. i was going to come back to this hook to use eventually. i don't know how people are still doing this but please stop.” pic.twitter.com/ZHh8pTLtxE
Urban’s indictment says he didn’t just go by “King Bob,” but also used the aliases, “Sosa,” “Elijah,” “Anthony Ramirez” and “Gustavo Fring”-- a reference to the character portrayed by Giancarlo Esposito in the popular “Breaking Bad” franchise.
An indictment is merely a formal charge that a defendant has committed one or more violations of federal criminal law, and every defendant is presumed innocent unless, and until, proven guilty.
Cyber security expert Chris Hamer talked about the signs to tell if your phone has been “SIM swapped.”
“You will either start getting text messages or phone calls from numbers you don’t recognize. You will be unable to make phone calls or send text messages. You’ll constantly get no service pop-ups. You’ll get service interruptions,” Hamer said.
Hamer also suggested if you have cryptocurrency, you need to ensure your account is as secure as possible.
“They need to enable two-factor authentication,” Hamer said. “They need to not have it remember their credentials and authentication for making transactions. Yes, it slows you down. I’m sorry. But you can either be slowed down, or you can have some 19-year-old who’s smarter than you, figure out how to get into your wallet and vacuum it away.”