Ultimately, a portion of the Stolen Cryptocurrency was deposited into a cryptocurrency exchange account controlled by O’CONNOR.īetween 20, O’CONNOR participated in a variety of crimes associated with exploitation of social media accounts, online extortion, and cyberstalking. The Stolen Cryptocurrency was worth at least approximately $794,000 at the time of the theft and is currently worth more than $1.6 million.Īfter 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. On or about May 1, 2019, through their unauthorized access, O’CONNOR and his co-conspirators stole and fraudulently diverted cryptocurrency of various types (the “Stolen Cryptocurrency”) from cryptocurrency wallets maintained by Company-1 on behalf of two of its clients. Following a successful SIM swap attack targeting one of the executives on or about April 30, 2019, O’CONNOR and his co-conspirators successfully gained unauthorized access to multiple Company-1 accounts and computer systems. The threat actors then typically use control of the victim’s mobile phone number to obtain unauthorized access to accounts held by the victim that are registered to the mobile phone number.īetween approximately March 2019 and May 2019, O’CONNOR and his co-conspirators perpetrated a scheme to use SIM swaps to conduct cyber intrusions in order to steal a large amount of cryptocurrency from a Manhattan-based cryptocurrency company (“Company-1”), which, at all relevant times, provided wallet infrastructure and related software to cryptocurrency exchanges around the world.Īs part of the scheme, O’CONNOR and his co-conspirators successfully perpetrated SIM swap attacks targeting at least three Company-1 executives. Judge Rakoff imposed today’s sentence.Īccording to the publicly filed charging documents against O’CONNOR, court filings, and statements made in court:ĭuring a cyber intrusion known as a subscriber identity module (“SIM”) swap attack, cyber threat actors gain control of a victim’s mobile phone number by linking that number to a SIM card controlled by the threat actors, resulting in the victim’s calls and messages being routed to a malicious unauthorized device controlled by the threat actors. Rakoff to two sets of charges: (i) conspiracy to commit computer hacking and other charges pending in the Southern District of New York relating to a fraudulent scheme perpetrated by O’CONNOR and his co-conspirators to use a cyber intrusion technique known as a SIM swap attack to steal cryptocurrency, then valued at approximately $794,000, from a Manhattan-based cryptocurrency company and then to launder the proceeds of the scheme (the “SDNY Case”), and (ii) a set of charges filed in the Northern District of California, and transferred to the SDNY under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 20, relating to O’Connor’s role in the July 2020 hack of Twitter, computer intrusions related to takeovers of TikTok and Snapchat user accounts, and cyberstalking two separate victims (the “NDCA Case”). O’CONNOR was extradited from Spain on April 26, 2023, and pled guilty on May 9, 2023, before U.S. citizen, was sentenced today to five years in prison for his role in a wide array of cybercrime offenses. Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that JOSEPH JAMES O’CONNOR, a/k/a “PlugwalkJoe,” a U.K.
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