Police in Spain arrested a British man Wednesday on U.S. charges accusing him of hacking the Twitter accounts of several prominent Americans a year ago.
The Justice Department said 22-year-old Joseph O’Connor was arrested in Estepona, Spain, after U.S. authorities charged him with hacking into more than 130 Twitter accounts. He was also charged with intruding into TikTok and Snapchat accounts and cyberstalking a juvenile.
The Twitter attack last July targeted the accounts of then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, former president Barack Obama and other major figures in business and politics, as well as some celebrities, including Kim Kardashian. Once the fake messages were discovered, Twitter shut down the accounts, as well as the accounts of all other verified users, for several hours.
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Messages on the hacked accounts said, “I am giving back to the community,” and urged followers to send bitcoins to a specified address. Estimates at the time said more than $100,000 was sent in response.
Previously, scammers have used the names and profile pictures of people like Musk to lure people into sending them cryptocurrency. But all of the accounts in this case were genuine and belonged to the people targeted.
O’Connor now faces a raft of federal charges, and the U.S. will seek his extradition.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
