Twitter hacker ordered to repay £4.1m in bitcoin after celebrity account scam

A British man jailed in the US for hacking into the Twitter accounts of high-profile figures including Barack Obama and Jeff Bezos has been ordered to hand over £4.1 million in cryptocurrencies linked to his crimes.

Joseph James O’Connor, 26, was sentenced in the US last year after admitting his role in a sophisticated cyberattack that allowed him access to dozens of celebrity and corporate Twitter accounts. He used the hacked profiles to promote fraudulent Bitcoin schemes, scamming victims around the world. O’Connor also threatened several celebrities by posting private messages and photos unless they paid him in cryptocurrency.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has now obtained a civil recovery order to seize the 42 bitcoins – along with other digital assets – that O’Connor obtained through the scheme. The recovered cryptocurrency is worth around £4.1 million at today’s market value.

The Proceeds of Crime Section at the Crown Prosecution Service worked closely with agencies in the US and Spain, where O’Connor was arrested, to ensure he could not hide or transfer assets before executing the order.

Adrian Foster, lead prosecutor for the CPS’s Proceeds of Crime Division, said the action demonstrates the reach of UK authorities even when offenders are convicted abroad.

“Joseph James O’Connor targeted known individuals and used their accounts to defraud people of their crypto assets and funds,” he said. “We have been able to use the full force of our powers to ensure that even when someone is not convicted in the UK, we can still prevent them from profiting from their crime.”

O’Connor was a central figure in the July 2020 Twitter hack, one of the platform’s most significant security failures. The attack led to the hacking of accounts belonging to political leaders, billionaires, celebrities and major brands, prompting international investigations and widespread concern about the security of social media platforms.