Police have arrested a fake Uber driver accused of stealing more than $300,000 in cryptocurrencies from unwitting passengers.

Officers in Scottsdale, Arizona, a desert city east of Phoenix, arrested Nuruhussein Hussein, 40, on Wednesday on charges of theft, fraud and money laundering, Scottsdale police said in a statement.

In a joint operation with the U.S. Secret Service’s Phoenix field office, police discovered that the suspect pretended to be an Uber driver between March and December of this year and picked up unsuspecting customers who were waiting for a real one outside a Scottsdale hotel had ordered a trip.

Police said Hussein would then ask to use the victim’s phone under the guise of needing to look up directions or connect to the Uber app.

“While tampering with the unsuspecting victim’s phone, the suspect transferred cryptocurrencies from his digital wallet to his digital wallet,” a police statement said.

The suspect was booked into the Maricopa County Jail and both police and the Secret Service are continuing their investigation. He was charged with two counts of money laundering, two counts of fraud and two counts of theft. He appeared in court for a bond hearing on Wednesday and is scheduled to appear again on Dec. 18.

The court heard on Wednesday that he told an alleged victim to “relax or something bad would happen”.

He was given bail of $200,000 and prosecutors told the court that the suspect regularly travels to Ethiopia and is a flight risk. Conditions of the bond include constant electronic monitoring, a ban on all internet use and residence in Maricopa County.

Cryptocurrency fraud, a fast-growing and lucrative crime, is a major concern for law enforcement. According to the FBI, people across the U.S. filed more than 69,000 complaints and reported losing $5.6 billion to this form of fraud in 2023.

The actual number is likely to be many times higher because some victims are reluctant to contact the authorities.

According to the FBI’s first Crypto Fraud Report released in September, more than 16,000 complaints about cryptocurrency scams came from people over the age of 60.

Arrests related to cryptocurrency fraud are relatively rare. Four accused fraudsters, three from Southern California and one from suburban Chicago, were indicted last December in an alleged so-called “pig-slaughtering scheme” in which victims were duped into parting with more than $80 million, officials said on Thursday.