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Centralized exchange Crypto.com accidentally refunded a man $6.8 million (approximately $10.47 million Australian dollars) instead of $65. He then withdrew and spent the money. Now, three years later, he pled guilty alongside his partner for theft of $4.42 million, as reported by NewsWire.
Jatinder Singh tried to deposit $65 into his Crypto.com account back in May 2021 using his partner’s bank account. Due to the name discrepancy between the exchange and bank account, Crypto.com rejected the deposit.
Instead of simply refunding the $65 to his bank account, the exchange employee made a “significant account mistake” and typed in the account number of Singh’s partner—resulting in a refund of $4.42 million.
This isn't the first time Crypto.com has accidentally sent money to the wrong address. In August 2022, a woman owed $100 by the exchange was sent $10.5 million instead and went on a spending spree. She and her sister, both from Melbourne, were eventually dragged to court by the company. Then, later that year, the exchange accidentally sent $400 million worth of Ethereum to the wrong address.
In Singh's case, the Crypto.com error wasn’t discovered until seven months later during an internal audit. But by that time, Singh and his partner, Thevamanogari Manivel, had already spent a lot of the money.
The couple bought two homes and two blocks of land in Melbourne, Australia and gifted a friend $650,000.
Prosecutor Campbell Thomson said that Singh told Manivel to withdraw the money because he wanted to avoid the transaction being reversed. However, Singh later claimed that he honestly believed that the couple had won a raffle.
When Crypto.com realized the mistake it had made, the company contacted Commonwealth Bank which informed Manivel that the money needed to be returned. Despite suspecting that it was a scam, she transferred $2.6 million to her bank account.Manivel was later arrested when boarding a one-way flight to Malaysia in March 2022.
Singh pled guilty to the theft of $4.42 million in front of the Victorian County Court in Australia. His barrister claimed that Singh did not understand the seriousness of his actions. He awaits sentencing later this month.
Manivel, on the other hand, was sentenced to 209 days in prison. But the court considered her prison sentence already served after the couple spent almost a year on remand. She was also placed on an 18 month community corrections order last year, after she pled guilty to recklessly dealing with the proceeds of a crime.