A British man jailed in the US who hacked the Twitter accounts of celebrities including Barack Obama and Jeff Bezos has been sentenced to hand over £4.1 million worth of cryptocurrencies in connection with his crimes.
Joseph James O’Connor, 26, was convicted in the US last year after he admitted taking part in a sophisticated cyberattack in which he gained access to dozens of Twitter accounts belonging to celebrities and companies. He used the compromised profiles to promote fraudulent Bitcoin schemes and defraud victims worldwide. O’Connor also threatened several celebrities with publishing private messages and pictures unless they paid him in cryptocurrency.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has now obtained a civil recovery order to seize 42 bitcoins – along with other digital assets – that O’Connor obtained through the scheme. The recovered cryptocurrency is worth around £4.1 million in today’s market value.
The CPS Proceeds of Crime Division worked closely with authorities in the United States and Spain, where O’Connor was arrested, to ensure that he could not conceal or transfer the assets before the order was enforced.
Adrian Foster, chief prosecutor for the CPS Proceeds of Crime Unit, said the action showed the reach of British authorities even when offenders were convicted abroad.
“Joseph James O’Connor targeted well-known individuals and used their accounts to defraud people of their crypto assets and money,” he said. “We have been able to use the full force of our powers to ensure that if someone has not been convicted in the UK we can still prevent them from profiting from their crime.”
O’Connor was a central figure in the July 2020 Twitter breach, one of the platform’s most serious security breaches. The attack compromised accounts of political leaders, billionaires, celebrities and major brands, prompting international investigations and widespread concern about the security of social media platforms.
