US prosecutors in Manhattan said Joseph James O'Connor, 22,
and his accomplices stole Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin after gaining control
of victims' cellphone numbers by linking them to subscriber identity module
cards, or SIM cards.
O'Connor, also known as PlugwalkJoe, and his accomplices
conducted so-called SIM swap attacks targeting three executives of a Manhattan
cryptocurrency company, stole cryptocurrency from two clients, and laundered
what they stole, prosecutors said.
A lawyer for O'Connor could not immediately be identified.
Prosecutors said the scheme ran from March to May 2019.
O'Connor has been awaiting possible extradition from Spain
following his July 21 arrest concerning a July 2020 hacking that compromised
dozens of Twitter accounts and allegedly netted more than $118,000 of Bitcoin.
The accounts included those of current US President Joe
Biden, former President Barack Obama, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, Bill
Gates, Tesla's Elon Musk, reality TV star Kim Kardashian and Ye, the rapper
once known as Kanye West.
Graham Ivan Clark, the accused teenage mastermind of the
Twitter hacking, pleaded guilty in March in a Florida state court and agreed to
serve three years in a juvenile prison.
Wednesday's charges against O'Connor include conspiracies to
commit wire fraud and money laundering, each carrying a maximum 20-year prison
term, as well as aggravated identity theft and conspiracy to commit computer
hacking. -Reuters
0 comments:
Post a Comment