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WASHINGTON – Spanish police on Wednesday arrested a Briton on US charges accusing him of hacking the Twitter accounts of several prominent Americans and a foreign leader last year.
The Justice Department said Joseph O’Connor, 22, was arrested in the Spanish seaside town of Estepona, after US authorities accused him of hacking more than 130 Twitter accounts. He was also charged with trespassing on TikTok and Snapchat accounts and cyberstalking a minor.
The Twitter attack last July targeted the accounts of Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, former President Barack Obama, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, investment guru Warren Buffet , former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Benjamin Netanyahu, then prime minister.
The accounts of several celebrities have been targeted, including Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. After the fake messages were discovered, Twitter shut down the accounts, along with the accounts of all other verified users, for several hours.
The messages on the hacked accounts read, “I give back to the community” and urged subscribers to send bitcoin to a specified address. The fake message on Elon Musk’s account, for example, claimed he would double any payment made within the hour. Federal prosecutors said the scam brought in nearly $ 120,000 from 415 separate transfers.
Previously, crooks used the names and profile photos of people like Musk to trick people into sending them cryptocurrency. But all the accounts in this case were genuine and belonged to the targeted people.
O’Connor now faces a slew of federal charges for participating in the attack, and the United States will seek his extradition.
Florida teenager Graham Ivan Clark, 17, was arrested last August and charged with playing a central role in the Twitter hack. He pleaded guilty in March and was sentenced to three years in prison.
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