Joseph James O’Connor (aka PlugwalkJoe), 24, was awarded the sentence on Friday in the Southern District of New York, a little over a month after he pleaded guilty to the criminal schemes. He was arrested in Spain in July 2021.
The infamous Twitter breach allowed the defendant and his co-conspirators to obtain unauthorized access to backend tools used by Twitter, abusing them to hijack 130 popular accounts to perpetrate a crypto scam that netted them about $120,000 in illegal profits.
“In other instances, the co-conspirators sold access to Twitter accounts to others,” the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) said. “O’Connor communicated with others regarding purchasing unauthorized access to a variety of Twitter accounts, including accounts associated with public figures around the world.”
“After stealing and fraudulently diverting the Stolen Cryptocurrency, O’Connor and his co-conspirators laundered it through dozens of transfers and transactions and exchanged some of it for Bitcoin using cryptocurrency exchange services,” the DoJ said.
Also in the list of offenses committed by O’Connor is cyberstalking two victims, including a minor in June and July 2020 by falsely claiming that the individual was making threats to shoot people in an attempt to incite a law enforcement response.
O’Connor, who said his crimes were “stupid and pointless,” according to TechCrunch, also faces three years of supervised release after serving his jail term. He has also been ordered to forfeit $794,000.
Source: https://thehackernews.com/
