The moment London crypto fraudster who stole £200k in SIM swap scan arrested
The man spent more than £44,000 of stolen money on a high-end apartment, gold-plated teeth grills, and luxury holidays
This is the moment a London crypto fraudster who stole £200,000 in a SIM swap scan was arrested after flying back from Dubai. Seeking to fund his lavish lifestyle, Ajay Shinjin, 25, of Canary Wharf, London , spent more than £44,000 of stolen money on a high-end apartment, gold-plated teeth grills, and luxury holidays. After pleading guilty to fraud and transferring criminal property, Shinjin has been jailed for two years.
Wearing a grey hoodie, footage of Shinjin’s arrest just after 7am on October 16, 2023, at Heathrow Airport, was captured in a police body camera video. Click here to get the biggest stories straight to your inbox in our Daily Newsletter Shinjin was able to gain control of his victims' devices in a practice known as 'SIM swapping'. This allowed him to receive a passcode to access cryptocurrency accounts belonging to his victims back in November 2021.
Among his victims was a person who had £40,000 worth of cryptocurrency stolen, of which he received roughly £27,000. A second victim had £17,000 taken, which Shinjin kept for himself. £8,000 was taken from a third victim's Coinbase cryptocurrency account, which Shinjin sent elsewhere.
While a fourth victim had £130,000 taken, which Shinjin also helped facilitate. Also going by AJ Marley Cruz, Shinjin was initially arrested at his flat in 2021. He was later re-arrested at Heathrow Airport in October 2023 while on his way back from Dubai.
During an interview with City of London Police, Shinjin provided no comment to all questions put to him. Following a hearing at Inner London Crown Court on Thursday (October 8), he’s been jailed for two and a half years. Don't let an algorithm decide what Manchester news you see - click here to add the MEN as your preferred Google source Shinjin pleaded guilty to one county of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation and one of transferring criminal property last month.
He was caught after the telecoms company BT identified that customer telephone numbers had been transferred to SIM cards controlled by criminals back in November 2021. Through the scam, fraudsters are able to exploit the ability to port a mobile number, usually used when switching providers if a phone is lost or stolen. They do this by transferring the number onto the criminal’s SIM card.
From here, criminals can use the phone number to receive security codes sent via text message to gain access to the victim’s bank accounts or cryptocurrency wallets to access their money. BT’s investigation identified devices used to receive ported phone numbers using IMEI numbers. This is a unique serial number which can identify a phone or other device that uses a SIM card or virtual eSIM.
Each of the phones identified by BT had two IMEI numbers, due to having a physical SIM slot and being enabled to use virtual eSIMs. Shinjin was identified as being in control of four of the devices. The investigation showed that victims associated with the fraud had all reported crimes in the first week of November 2021.
Meanwhile, Shinjin is already serving another prison sentence for an unrelated matter and is due to be released in 2028. He will serve his two-year sentence consecutively, following his current prison time.
