British hacker ordered to pay back over £4m in Bitcoin after accessing celebrity X accounts

A British antheral who hacked the X accounts of celebrities successful a bid to con radical retired of Bitcoin, has been ordered to repay £4.1m-worth of the cryptocurrency, prosecutors say.

Joseph James O'Connor, 26, was jailed successful the United States for 5 years successful 2023 aft helium pleaded guilty to charges including machine intrusion, ligament fraud and extortion.

He was arrested successful Spain successful 2021 and extradited aft the country's precocious tribunal ruled the US was champion placed to prosecute due to the fact that the grounds and victims were there.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said connected Monday it had obtained a civilian betterment bid to prehend 42 Bitcoin and different crypto assets linked to the scam, successful which O'Connor utilized hijacked accounts to solicit integer currency and endanger celebrities.

The July 2020 hack compromised accounts of high-profile figures including erstwhile US president Barack Obama and Amazon laminitis Jeff Bezos.

O'Connor and his co-conspirators stole much than $794,000 (£629,000) of cryptocurrency aft utilizing the hacked accounts to inquire radical to nonstop $1,000 successful Bitcoin to person treble back.

Prosecutor Adrian Foster said successful a connection the bid showed that "even erstwhile idiosyncratic is not convicted successful the UK, we are inactive capable to guarantee they bash not payment from their criminality".

A civilian betterment order, which valued O'Connor assets astatine £4.1m, was made past week, pursuing a frost placed connected the hacker's property, which prosecutors secured during extradition proceedings.

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A court-appointed trustee volition liquidate his assets, the CPS said.

The onslaught besides compromised the X (then Twitter) accounts of different high-profile figures including past Democratic statesmanlike campaigner Joe Biden, Tesla main enforcement Elon Musk, capitalist Warren Buffett, and media property and businesswoman Kim Kardashian.

The hack prompted the societal media level to temporarily frost immoderate accounts.

X said 130 accounts were targeted, with 45 utilized to nonstop tweets.