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- A British man previously accused in the US of hacking into the Twitter accounts of leaders and celebrities was charged on Wednesday with a different operation involving the theft of $784,000 in bitcoin
- Prosecutors say O’Connor, also known as PlugwalkJoe, and his associates carried out so-called SIM swap assaults on three executives of a Manhattan cryptocurrency firm, stole bitcoin from two clients, and laundered the money
- O’Connor was charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering
A British man previously accused in the US with hacking into the Twitter accounts of leaders and celebrities was charged on Wednesday with a different operation involving the theft of $784,000 in bitcoin. Joseph James O’Connor, 22, and his associates, according to US prosecutors in Manhattan, stole bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin after getting control of victims’ cell phone numbers by attaching them to subscriber identity module cards, or SIM cards.
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Prosecutors say O’Connor, also known as PlugwalkJoe, and his associates carried out so-called SIM swap assaults on three executives of a Manhattan cryptocurrency firm, stole bitcoin from two clients, and laundered the money. O’Connor’s counsel could not be located right away. Prosecutors say the scam took place between March and May of this year. Following his arrest on July 21, for a July 2020 hacking that compromised dozens of Twitter accounts and allegedly netted more than $118,000 in bitcoin, O’Connor has been awaiting possible extradition from Spain.
Current US Vice President Joe Biden, former US President Barack Obama, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, reality TV star Kim Kardashian, and Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, were among those whose accounts were hacked. Graham Ivan Clark, the alleged teen mastermind of the Twitter hacking, pleaded guilty in March in a Florida state court and agreed to serve three years in a juvenile prison. On Wednesday, O’Connor was charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering, each of which carry a potential sentence of 20 years in prison, as well as aggravated identity theft and conspiracy to commit computer hacking.
Anurag is working as a fundamental writer for The Coin Republic since 2021. He likes to exercise his curious muscles and research deep into a topic. Though he covers various aspects of the crypto industry, he is quite passionate about the Web3, NFTs, Gaming, and Metaverse, and envisions them as the future of the (digital) economy. A reader & writer at heart, he calls himself an “average guitar player” and a fun footballer.
