A 24-year-old Portuguese man was sentenced Monday to seven years in federal prison for stealing more than $1 million in cryptocurrency from unwitting victims, including a resident of Montgomery County — crimes prosecutors said the man committed while he was associated with an international cybercrime network.
Ruben Filipe Gabriel Martins pleaded guilty last year to wire fraud and identity theft charges for using sophisticated phishing tactics to obtain victims’ cryptocurrency account information, then stealing their investments.
Prosecutors said Martins committed his fraud while he was part of a group called “the Com,” a global network of people who use technology to commit a variety of crimes across the world, including extortion, theft, and even incitements of violence.
Last year, a teen who was associated with a subset of the Com made hoax active-shooter calls targeting Villanova University and other colleges, prosecutors have said, crimes that led to massive police responses and inspired widespread panic.
Martins, meanwhile, was associated with a subset known as “CryptoChameleon,” a group that uses a variety of deceptive tactics to obtain account information from cryptocurrency holders. In Martin’s case, prosecutors said, he pretended to be a customer support representative for Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange, and told his victims he could offer support for their compromised accounts — tactics he used to get into the accounts and steal the victims’ funds.
Martins then went on to transfer the proceeds into other cryptocurrencies, prosecutors said, and ultimately spent his ill-gotten gains on luxury goods, traveling, and gambling.
His scheme began to unravel in 2024, when prosecutors said a man from Towamencin Township told police that more than $60,000 had been stolen out of his cryptocurrency account after he’d replied to text messages and calls about its security. Authorities were ultimately able to link that activity to Martins, who was born in Portugal and went on to live in Scotland.
Martins’ lawyer said in court documents that Martins had never intended to become “a career criminal.” But after being raised in modest circumstances — including by working in a fish factory as a teenager — Martins was introduced to a host of wealthy benefactors due to his skill in online gaming, his lawyer said, and some of those people then flew him to Paris and recruited him to participate in their digital exploitation operation.
In court Monday, Martins apologized for his actions, saying he was in debt when he committed his crimes and viewed the scheme as a way to make “really easy money.”
“I made a mistake when I was really down,” he said, “and I’d just like to have another chance at life.”
But U.S. District Judge Gerald J. Pappert said it was a significant understatement to describe the crimes as a mistake — saying Martins had used his computer skills and desire for money to turn himself into a “dangerous” person who only stopped when he got caught.
“Not one thing you did in two years was a mistake,” Pappert said. “You needed money. You saw what for you was an easy way to get a lot of money … And I don’t know to what extent, if at all, you ever felt bad about it, because these people were all behind a computer, and you never had to look them in the eye.”
One of Martins’ victims has seven children, Pappert noted, and others were intelligent people who lost significant portions of their life’s savings.
Martins is expected to be deported to Portugal once he finishes his prison sentence. But Pappert said his victims may never get over the shame and financial hardship he caused them.
“These were horrible crimes,” Pappert said. “None of these people deserved this.”