Joseph O’Connor, known in some corners of the Internet as “PlugWalkJoe”, He was charged with a series of charges related to the hack of a cryptocurrency exchange in May 2019. During the attack, it is presumed that O’Connor took away digital assets valued at approximately $ 784,000.
In his criminal proceeding, authorities believe that O’Connor used SIM swapping attacks (a fraud scheme in which phone calls and messages from 2FA are diverted to a device controlled by the scammer) against three different executives of a undisclosed cryptocurrency company to take control of its employee systems. O’Connor could then have diverted more than 7 BTC, 407 ETH, 6,363 LTC and 770 BCH from company wallets on behalf of its users to wallets controlled by it.
The indictment was brought by the United States Attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York, which is well known for its prosecution of high-profile financial crimes. The case is assigned to Judge Richard Berman and was investigated by the FBI. O’Connor is specifically charged with conspiracy to commit computer hacking, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering and aggravated identity theft. The identity theft charge carries a mandatory minimum of two years in prison to be served consecutively to any other sentence imposed.
O’Connor is currently fighting extradition to the United States from Spain, where he was arrested in July on charges filed in the Northern District of California related to the 2020 Twitter hack, in which he allegedly managed to control several of the largest accounts. of the social network, including those of Barack Obama, Elon Musk, Apple and Kanye West. The culprits used these accounts to promote a cryptocurrency scam before grabbing about $ 110,000 in ill-gotten gains.
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