A London man has been sentenced to two and a half years in prison for his role in what the City of London Police described as a "complex and calculated" SIM-swap fraud that stole nearly £200,000, or about $265,000, in cryptocurrency.
Ajay Shinjin, 25, also known as AJ Marley Cruz, was sentenced at Inner London Crown Court after pleading guilty on September 28 to conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation and transferring criminal property.
Police said Shinjin, of Marsh Wall in Canary Wharf, helped steal nearly £200,000 in crypto. He received more than £44,000 of the stolen funds and spent the money on luxury holidays in Dubai, a high-end apartment in Canary Wharf, and gold-plated teeth grills.
How the SIM-swap scheme worked
In a SIM swap, criminals take control of a victim’s phone number by moving it to a SIM card they control. Once that happens, they can receive one-time passcodes sent by text message from banks and crypto platforms.
In early November 2021, BT identified unauthorized activity on its systems that transferred customer phone numbers to SIM cards controlled by criminals. BT traced the devices used to receive those numbers, and the data led police to several suspects, including Shinjin, who was linked to four of the devices.
Losses tied to four victims
According to police, one victim lost about £40,000 in crypto on November 2, 2021. Of that amount, about £27,000 was sent to Shinjin’s personal crypto account.
All of a second victim’s roughly £17,000 ended up in his wallet. Police also said he helped steal about £8,000 from a third victim’s Coinbase account and about £130,000 from a fourth victim.
Arrests and police statement
Shinjin was first arrested at his flat in 2021. He was arrested again at Heathrow Airport in October 2023 after returning from Dubai, after further evidence came to light. Police said he gave no comment during interviews.
"SIM-swap fraud is a sophisticated and increasingly concerning form of offending, and this case demonstrates the devastating consequences it can have for victims," Detective Constable Simon Ardeman of the City of London Police said.
SIM-swap cases are rising in the UK
Unauthorized SIM-swap cases recorded in the UK’s National Fraud Database rose 402% in the first half of 2026 from the same period a year earlier, fraud prevention service Cifas said in August. Cifas said the increase shows SIM swaps are being used more often to intercept security codes and bypass account protections.
Mark Birchall, staff cybersecurity editor at Norton, recommends using an authentication app for two-factor authentication instead of text messages, because that ties account access to a physical device rather than a phone number.
He also recommends setting a separate PIN or passcode with a mobile carrier where possible, and enabling account takeover protection, which some carriers offer to apply stricter verification rules to account changes.
Birchall wrote that SIM swapping is one reason a phone number "may not be the best way to verify your identity."