“When I started doing it all, actually sim swapping and crypto and stuff, late teenager, maybe 20, I was like, damn, dude, I'm making more than people make in a lifetime, or more than their decade of a salary, and I'm making that in 10 minutes.”
Darknet Diaries · Software Engineering & Infra · October 2026
Jack Rhysider asked the former SIM-swapper whether his first six- or seven-figure theft surprised him. Handschumacher and his crew took over victims' phone numbers, sometimes by paying phone-store employees a few hundred dollars, and then emptied their crypto accounts.
Transcript
We found the money, we send it out, and a couple million here, a couple hundred thousand there, and you know, it adds up.
These numbers are startling, right? You've had to be surprised by your first big hundred thousand dollar or million dollar lick.
Yeah. When I started doing it all, like actually sim swapping and crypto and stuff, like late teenager, maybe 20. And I was like, damn, dude, like I'm making more like than people make in a lifetime or like more than their decade of a salary and I'm making that in 10 minutes.
Ricky said that he would sometimes pay an employee at a cell phone store a couple hundred bucks to help them do a sim swap. An insider who could bypass the security protections, just like what happened to Mark. This insider, he says, didn't know exactly how much was being stolen in crypto. They…
So once I had a couple million, I was like, damn, like my mortal comp is checked in. I'm like, I'm like actually screwing people's lives up. Like I have my own kid. Like my kid's going to be set for life. Like just to live in life now. But we just kept going. It was like almost like an addiction at…
While all this was going on, Ricky Handschumacher living a double life. He had just turned 18. He had just finished high school. He did not get the baseball scholarship for college. He did get a girlfriend and they had a kid together and he was still living at home with his mom. And he had a…