The sad story of a lonely alleged SIM swapper who stole millions

You probably shouldn’t feel sorry for Nicholas Truglia. It’s just that his story is so pathetic.

The 21-year old Manhattan resident was arrested last November and extradited to California in December. There, he’d face 21 felony counts relating to accusations of SIM swapping his way to a million dollars worth of stolen cryptocurrency. While Truglia’s fate remains unclear, details of his life leading up to the arrest have begun to emerge thanks to a lawsuit filled by a separate alleged victim, and oh man is it a wild ride. 

As Krebs on Security reports, a lawsuit filed by Michael Terpin — a cryptocurrency investor and self-described “thought leader” — against Truglia claims he lost over $23 million after Truglia SIM swapped him and drained his crypto accounts in January of 2018. That document, and a supporting affidavit by one of Truglia’s former friends, tells the story of a cash-flush young man who saw himself as untouchable. 

And, perhaps unsurprisingly, they also paint Truglia as kind of an asshole. 

“Nick likened himself to Robin Hood who robs from the rich but did not give to the poor,” explained Chris David, former associate of Truglia’s, in the aforementioned affidavit. 

Instead, the documents paint a picture of someone who delighted in giving to himself — in the form of a Rolex, a $6,000-a-month apartment, and a $100,000 stack of cash he kept on his credenza. But that clearly wasn’t enough for him.

According to David, Truglia operated the now-suspended Twitter account @erupts, where he lamented that his wealth didn’t bring him friends, and even bragged about SIM swapping his dad.  

“Stole 24 million but still can’t keep a friend,” reads one alleged Truglia tweet saved by David and included in his supporting affidavit. 

David’s affidavit is filled with some other gems, as well. 

“Nick arrogantly proclaims that he will never [be] caught hacking/stealing because he is so good at it—literally, ‘how are they going to prove that my story [his defense] wrong?,'” he wrote. “Nick also boasted: ‘Nobody can get me in trouble. Nobody can put me in jail. I would bet my life on it, actually.'”

In addition to supposedly boasting about how he would never be caught, David says Truglia took pleasure in life’s small things: Like, for example, skipping out on a restaurant check and repeatedly beating his dog. 

Obviously, Truglia was eventually arrested. According to Krebs On Security, his court date is set for April 10.

Terpin, for his part, wants his money back. “I have brought this lawsuit as part my ongoing effort to recover my losses caused by the perpetrators of the January 7, 2018 theft,” he explained to the court. 

Which, hey, why not. As this lawsuit makes clear, stranger things have happened.