Noah Michael Urban (pictured), a 19-year old from Palm Coast, Florida, will be tried on March 4 for crimes involving SIM swap fraud, cryptocurrency theft and identity theft. He is accused of taking bitcoin and ethereum worth USD800,000 from five victims whose wallets were compromised using SIM swaps. Urban is also said to belong to a group of criminal conspirators who coordinated their efforts using Discord and which allegedly stole USD10‑15mn between them.
Despite Urban’s young age, the prosecution requested he be held in jail until his trial. The judge agreed, commenting that he feared Urban was “going to seek to obstruct justice in any way”. Urban was seemingly tipped-off prior to his arrest, allowing him to delete all his social media history and wipe incriminating data from his computer’s hard drive. The teenager had been living in various Airbnb properties since leaving the family home whilst still only 16.
Urban used several aliases online, including ‘King Bob’, ‘Elijah’ and ‘Anthony Ramirez’. When Urban was arrested a large number of social media users, including the accounts belonging to several pop music publications, identified Urban as being responsible for leaking songs in advance of their official release. Musicians affected by his leaks include Ariana Grande and Lil Uzi Vert.
Ariana Grande’s music leaker, King Bob, was arrested for wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
He could face up to 20 years in federal prison. pic.twitter.com/9KSUrCuo5G
— Buzzing Pop (@BuzzingPop) January 12, 2024
