Couple will have a plea hearing in October after Crypto.com delivered them $10.5M in error.

The couple, who received the funds by mistake, proceeded to spend the money before the error was discovered.

The exchange identified that the bank account did not match the exchange account, and thus issued a refund.

The incident went unnoticed until December 2021 when Crypto.com conducted its annual audit.

However, the couple alleged that they had already spent the bulk majority of the money.

They reportedly purchased four houses, vehicles, and various other items. Additionally, approximately 4 million AU$ were sent to a Malaysian bank account.

At the time, the court ordered the sale of one of the houses, a five-bedroom property in Craigieburn worth 1.35 million AU$, with the proceeds to be returned.

Couple Claim they Believed they Won a Prize

During the court proceedings in October 2022, the couple claimed that they believed they had won a prize from the crypto exchange.

Singh argued that he had received a notification about a competition from the company in the past.

In September 2023, Manivel pleaded guilty to recklessly dealing with the proceeds of the crime.

She was sentenced to an 18-month community corrections order, which includes six months of intensive compliance and unpaid community work.

Meanwhile, Singh is scheduled to face a plea trial on October 23, where he will present his defense in the case.

Notably, this was not the first time Crypto.com made a mistake when making transactions.

At the time, Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek explained that the transaction was supposed to be a move to a new cold storage address, but was sent to a whitelisted external exchange address.

“We worked with the Gate team and the funds were subsequently returned to our cold storage. New process and features were implemented to prevent this from reoccurring.”