O’Connor, known as PlugwalkJoe on the internet, admitted to committing various offences such as computer intrusion, extortion, stalking, wire fraud, and money laundering, and entered a guilty plea.
UK citizen Joseph James O’Connor has pleaded guilty to multiple charges, including conspiring to commit computer intrusions, wire fraud, and money laundering, in connection with his cyberstalking and hacking schemes.
O’Connor was extradited to the US from Spain last month and has been charged in both North Dakota and New York. He was part of a hacking group that hacked over 130 Twitter accounts in July 2020.
O’Connor and his co-conspirators also took part in SIM swap attacks to steal $794,000 worth of cryptocurrency and gain unauthorized access to TikTok accounts belonging to public figures. O’Connor is scheduled to be sentenced on 23rd June and faces a maximum of 77 years in prison.
The cyberstalking and computer hacking schemes were flagrant and malicious, and O’Connor’s conduct impacted multiple people’s lives, causing substantial emotional harm, said Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite.
The July 2020 Twitter attack involved taking over verified accounts, including those belonging to Joe Biden, Elon Musk, Barack Obama, Kim Kardashian, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Benjamin Netanyahu, Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, and Kanye West.
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The group behind this attack allegedly used these accounts to ask for digital currency, which caused Twitter to suspend some of the verified accounts from posting any messages for a few hours until security was reinstated.
O’Connor’s group also employed sim card swapping to gain unauthorized access to the social media accounts of two media celebrities, TikTok star Addison Rae and actor Bella Thorne.
The group also threatened to expose private images and other personal information of the two individuals. The same SIM swapping technique was also used to target a Manhattan-based cryptocurrency company from which $794,000 were stolen and laundered.
O’Connor, known as PlugwalkJoe on the internet, admitted to committing various offences such as computer intrusion, extortion, stalking, wire fraud, and money laundering, and entered a guilty plea.
This case serves as a warning that the reach of the law is long, and criminals anywhere who use computers to commit crimes may end up facing the consequences of their actions in places they did not anticipate, said U.S. Attorney Ismail Ramsey for the Northern District of California.
