- Joseph James O’Connor, 23, admitted to hijacking celebrity Twitter accounts
In what is one of the biggest hacks in social media history, scores of scam messages were pumped out from 130 Twitter accounts, including those of Kim Kardashian, Joe Biden, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos so that their followers would send them bitcoin.
All of the tweets, sent from the hacked accounts of the likes of Barack Obama, Michael Bloomberg, Kanye West and Bill Gates in July 2020, urged the celebrities’ millions of followers to send bitcoin to an account while promising to double their money if they did so.
Yesterday, Brit Joseph James O’Connor, 23, admitted to hijacking the celebrity Twitter accounts as part of a hacking campaign that left a ‘trail of destruction’ with unsuspecting victims swindled out of more than $180,000.
O’Connor, also known online as Plugwalk Joe, pleaded guilty in New York on Tuesday to his role in the hacking, in addition to stealing $794,000 in cryptocurrency, cyberstalking and online extortion.
The Briton, who was extradited to the US from Spain on April 26, admitted to conspiring to commit wire fraud and money laundering. O’Connor was charged alongside fellow Briton Mason Sheppard, from Bognor Regis, West Sussex, and two Americans, Graham Ivan Clark and Nima Fazeli.
O’Connor is also believed to be behind an attack on actress Bella Thorne where he allegedly threatened to leak nude photographs he had obtained by hacking her SnapChat account unless she agreed to various demands.
O’Connor, from Liverpool, UK, will also forfeit more than $794,000 and pay restitution to victims, prosecutors said. He faces a maximum of 77 years in prison at sentencing on June 23.
The Briton, alongside the three other hackers, used social engineering tricks to get access to the Twitter accounts and send out tweets asking followers to send bitcoin to an account, promising to double their money.
One hacked tweet from Biden read: ‘I am giving back to the community. All bitcoin sent to the address below will be sent back doubled! If you send $1,000, I will send back $2,000. Only doing this for 30 minutes.’
Another tweet from Bezos read: ‘I have decided to give back to my community. All Bitcoin sent to my address below will be sent back doubled. I am only doing a maximum of $50,000,000.’
Just days after the Twitter hack, O’Connor had laughed off any suggestion he was the one behind it.
‘I don’t care – they can come arrest me,’ O’Connor told the New York Times in July 2020 about his links to the breach. ‘I would laugh at them. I haven’t done anything.’
But two years later, O’Connor admitted to being behind the major hack.
In 2019 O’Connor and the three other hackers also used a technique known as sim card swaps to break their way into social media accounts of two media stars, not named in court filings but named in press reports as TikTok star Addison Rae and actress Bella Thorne.
The group threatened to release their private images and other information.
As a result, Thorne preemptively posted on Twitter that she had been ‘threatened with my own nudes,’ and posted screenshots of the text messages. Thorne said she was releasing the photographs so that the hacker would not be able to ‘take yet another thing from me.’
O’Connor allegedly used Rae’s TikTok account to post self-promotional messages, including a video in which his voice is recognisable, the US justice department said. He then threatened to release sensitive personal information related to Rae to individuals who joined a specified Discord server.
O’Connor is also said to have cyberstalked a 16-year-old girl and sent her nude pictures.
He also cyberstalked a minor and threatened them in June and July 2020. O’Connor called the local police several times and falsely claimed the victim was making threats to shoot people in order to put the minor in danger, the US justice department said.
O’Connor later called multiple family members of the victim and threatened to kill them, the department added.
In a separate case, the hackers used the same technique to steal $794,000 of virtual currency from a New York cryptocurrency company. Prosecutors said O’Connor will forfeit the money and pay restitution to the victims.
‘O’Connor’s criminal activities were flagrant and malicious, and his conduct impacted multiple people’s lives. He harassed, threatened, and extorted his victims, causing substantial emotional harm,’ Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite said in a statement.
‘Like many criminal actors, O’Connor tried to stay anonymous by using a computer to hide behind stealth accounts and aliases from outside the United States.
‘But this (guilty) plea shows that our investigators and prosecutors will identify, locate, and bring to justice such criminals to ensure they face the consequences for their crimes.’
‘O’Connor has left an impressive trail of destruction in the wake of his wave of criminality,’ said U.S. Attorney Ismail J. Ramsey for the Northern District of California.
‘This case serves as a warning that the reach of the law is long, and criminals anywhere who use computers to commit crimes may end up facing the consequences of their actions in places they did not anticipate.’
O’Connor was charged alongside compatriot Mason Sheppard of Bognor Regis, West Sussex, and two Americans, Graham Ivan Clark and Nima Fazeli.
Sheppard, who US authorities previously said is also known as Chaewon, was 19-years-old when the crimes took place in July 2020.
He was charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and the intentional access of a protected computer.
In July 2021, Florida teenager Graham Ivan Clark, the alleged mastermind of the hacking group, was sentenced to three years in juvenile prison under a plea agreement.
Clark, only 17 when he was charged, was sentenced to the maximum allowed under Florida’s Youthful Offender Act.
Prosecutors said the schemes included gaining unauthorized access to social media accounts on Twitter in July 2020 as well as a TikTok account in August 2020. Along with his co-conspirators, O’Connor stole at least $794,000 worth of cryptocurrency.
The July 2020 Twitter attack hijacked a variety of verified accounts, including those of then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk, who now owns Twitter.
The accounts of former President Barack Obama, reality TV star Kim Kardashian, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Benjamin Netanyahu, Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg and Kanye West were also hit.
The hackers used the accounts to solicit digital currency, prompting Twitter to prevent some verified accounts from publishing messages for several hours until security could be restored.
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