In addition to the prison sentence, O'Connor was sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to forfeit $794,000.
Joseph James O'Connor, a British citizen who was one of the perpetrators of the 2020 Twitter hack, was sentenced to five years in prison for his involvement in multiple cybercrimes.
According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, Judge Jed S. Rakoff sentenced O’Connor to two counts: conspiracy to commit computer hacking and theft of cryptocurrency via SIM swapping attacks; and his role in the 2020 Twitter hack, cyberstalking of two different victims, and computer intrusions related to TikTok and Snapchat user account takeovers.
O'Connor sentenced to five years in prison
The 24-year-old criminal was extradited from Spain on April 26, 2023, and pleaded guilty to the charges against him on May 9, 2023. He faces 20 years or more in prison.
Among his crimes, O’Connor used SIM swap attacks to steal $794,000 at the time in Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), and Litecoin (LTC) from three executives at a Manhattan crypto company. The fraud scheme lasted from March to May 2019. The stolen assets are currently valued at over $1.6 million, which O’Connor and his co-conspirators laundered through multiple cryptocurrency exchange accounts.
Additionally, O’Connor engaged in a range of criminal activity related to the exploitation of TikTok and Snapchat accounts, online extortion, and cyberstalking between 2019 and 2020. In one instance, O’Connor and his associates gained unauthorized access to the TikTok account of a public figure with millions of followers and posted self-promotional messages, threatening to release sensitive material to a designated group of people.
O'Connor's role in the 2020 Twitter hack
Additionally, O'Connor was involved in the massive Twitter hack in 2020 that compromised the accounts of senior politicians and celebrities. Some of the victims included U.S. President Joe Biden, former President Barack Obama, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
The Twitter accounts of major cryptocurrency companies and celebrities such as Binance, Bitfinex, Coinbase, Changpeng Zhao, and Justin Sun were all compromised. O’Connor and his accomplices also amassed more than $118,000 in cryptocurrency through tweets about fake giveaways.
In addition to the prison sentence, O'Connor was sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to forfeit $794,000.
Meanwhile, O’Connor’s partner, Graham Ivan Clark, the teenage mastermind of the Twitter hack, pleaded guilty in March 2021 and is currently serving a three-year sentence in a juvenile prison.
