While EOS is rarely mentioned as a blockchain with a real-world use case, the cryptocurrency has proven to be very useful in the latest extradition of an Uzbek national living in Ukraine: Nikita Sklyuev, also known as Valeriy Dorojkin, was finally extradited this week to face charges related to wire fraud from 2019.
According to documents from the 2019 charges, Sklyuev created a fake EOS wallet explorer that was able to access the private keys of a user who held over two million EOS — valued at $11.8 million at the time — and move the crypto onto Binance and Bitfinex, where he then traded into Ethereum and eventually cashed out.
nikitaDownload
Over half the stolen EOS has not been touched yet and is currently valued at about $640,000 — a decline of 86% from when it was hacked.
Sklyuev hacked the ‘Hodgetwins’ — a Republican-leaning comedy duo with millions of followers — back in 2018 according to an old Steemit post.
Read more: How wire fraud, not securities violations, lands crypto criminals in prison
Uzbekistan, Ukraine, and the Western District of New York
It’s unclear what the 37 year-old Uzbek national was doing in Ukraine, but his presence in the Western-aligned nation certainly made his extradition easier.
Sklyuev arrived in the US on June 20th, with his mugshot circulating on Facebook upon his arrival.
Sklyuev faces up to 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000 — though he is likely to spend less than 20 years behind bars.
