A man convicted over a 2020 Twitter hack that compromised accounts of high-profile figures including former U.S. President Barack Obama has been ordered to repay 4.1 million pounds ($5.40 million) worth of Bitcoin, British prosecutors said on Monday. This development follows the conviction of Joseph James O’Connor, who was sentenced in the United States last year. The attack involved using the hijacked accounts to solicit digital currency from followers and threaten celebrities, an activity that the authorities have been aggressively pursuing to recover the illicit gains.
Joseph James O’Connor, 26, pleaded guilty in the United States to charges including computer intrusion, wire fraud, and extortion and was sentenced to five years in prison in 2023. His legal journey began with his arrest in Spain in 2021 and subsequent extradition. The Spanish High Court ruled that the U.S. was the appropriate jurisdiction for prosecution, given that the bulk of the evidence and the victims were located there.
Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announced on Monday that it had successfully obtained a civil recovery order to seize 42 Bitcoin and other crypto assets linked to the scam. This action was taken even though O’Connor was not convicted in the UK. The CPS utilized its legal powers to ensure the perpetrator would not financially benefit from his criminal activities, highlighting the extensive reach of international cooperation in pursuing cybercrime.
Prosecutor Adrian Foster emphasized the significance of the ruling in a statement, noting, “We were able to use the full force of the powers available to us to ensure that even when someone is not convicted in the UK, we are still able to ensure they do not benefit from their criminality.” This order, secured just last week, builds upon a previous property freezing order that was put in place during the extradition proceedings. The seized assets will now be liquidated by a court-appointed trustee.
The malicious July 2020 attack saw the compromise of numerous verified accounts beyond Obama’s, including those of then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Kim Kardashian. The scale of the intrusion was so significant that Twitter (now known as X) was prompted to temporarily restrict all verified accounts to mitigate the damage and regain control over the platform.
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