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CRIME

Brit arrested in Spain pleads guilty to hacking celebrities’ Twitter accounts

A British man pleaded guilty Tuesday for his role in schemes to hack the Twitter accounts of celebrities like Barack Obama and Elon Musk and stealing $794,000 in cryptocurrency.

Brit arrested in Spain pleads guilty to hacking celebrities' Twitter accounts
Connor hacked over 100 Twitter accounts belonging to a range of famous people and companies. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN / AFP)

Joseph James O’Connor, 23, entered his guilty plea in a New York court after being extradited from Spain on April 26th.

He was arrested nearly two years ago in Spain for the July 2020 hack of over 130 Twitter accounts, including those of Apple, Uber, Kanye West, Bill Gates, Joe Biden, Obama and Musk.

He and others in his hacking group hijacked the accounts and asked the owners’ followers to send them bitcoin, promising to double their money.

In 2019 the group also used a technique known as sim card swaps to break their way into social media accounts of two media stars, not named in court filings but named in press reports as TikTok star Addison Rae and actress Bella Thorne.

The group threatened to release their private images and other information.

In addition, they used the same technique to steal $794,000 of virtual currency from a New York cryptocurrency company.

O’Connor, who went by the online name of PlugwalkJoe, pleaded guilty to multiple counts of computer intrusion, extortion, stalking, wire fraud and money laundering.

The most serious of the charges brings up to 20 years in prison.

In July 2021, Florida teenager Graham Ivan Clark, the alleged mastermind of the hacking group, was sentenced to three years in juvenile prison under a plea agreement.

Clark, only 17 when he was charged, was sentenced to the maximum allowed under Florida’s Youthful Offender Act.

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CRIME

Europol bust cocaine gang with arrests in Marbella and Canary Islands

Europol said Thursday that a crime ring smuggling drugs into Europe had collapsed as the result of an investigation involving 40 arrests and the seizure of eight tonnes of cocaine.

Europol bust cocaine gang with arrests in Marbella and Canary Islands

The Hague-based European police force said the entire cartel, whose leaders were based in Turkey and Dubai, had been dealt a major blow after a final set of arrests Wednesday.

The vast three-year-long operation involved police forces from a dozen countries and ranged from Brazil to Spain via Turkey.

According to Europol, the final phase of the operation began with the discovery in August 2023 by the Spanish Guardia Civil of 700 kilos (1,540 pounds)of cocaine in a boat off the Canary Islands, crewed by Croat and Italian citizens.

After exchanging their findings with other police forces, the investigators found links with previous seizures which led to the identification of the masterminds.

In all, 40 people were arrested in six countries, including two top Croat members of the network, who were arrested at the end of 2023 in Istanbul, police said.

The last four arrests took place on Wednesday in Spain, according to Europol.

In one operation witnessed by an AFP journalist, heavily armed members of Spain’s Guardia Civil arrested a 40-year-old man at dawn at his home near Marbella, a seaside resort popular with drug traffickers.

The smugglers shipped cocaine from South America to logistical hubs in west Africa and the Canary Islands.

The drugs were then sent on to centres in Belgium, Croatia, Germany, Italy and Spain for distribution across Europe.

Many of the drug network’s assets, with a total value of several tens of millions of euros, had been seized or frozen, Europol added.

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