Noah “King Bob” Urban was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Wednesday after pleading guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft charges. Between 2022 and 2023, Urban allegedly stole several victims' personal information through a process known as "SIM swapping." This involved rerouting other people's cellphone numbers to his own devices, which would then allow him to access their wallets.
At least five different victims were robbed of $800,000 in cryptocurrency. Authorities say he used several aliases in addition to "King Bob," including “Sosa,” “Elijah,” and “Anthony Ramirez.”
According to Complex, Urban is alleged to be a member of the group Scattered Spider. The group has made headlines in the past for allegedly leaking unreleased music from a number of popular artists. They include Playboi Carti and Lil Uzi Vert.
Authorities originally arrested Urban back in January 2024. This April, he pleaded guilty in two federal cases, one from Florida and one from California. For the case in Florida, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft. In California, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. In addition to his time behind bars, Urban will have to serve three years of supervised release and pay $13 million in restitution to a total of 59 victims.
Read More: King Bob, Notorious Music Leaker, Faces 20 Years After Pleading Guilty To Wire Fraud Charges
Who Are Scattered Spider?
As for Scattered Spider, the group is believed to be comprised of teenage and young adult hackers. According to a Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) put out by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), they target large companies and their contracted information technology help desks, and have allegedly engaged in data theft for extortion, among other criminal activities.
The group's members "are considered experts in social engineering and use multiple social engineering techniques, especially phishing, push bombing, and subscriber identity module (SIM) swap attacks, to obtain credentials, install remote access tools, and/or bypass multi-factor authentication (MFA)."
