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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

Spanish police smash international drug-smuggling ring

Spanish police have smashed an international network led by Turkish nationals suspected of smuggling "large amounts" of marijuana and heroin from Spain to other European nations, police said on Tuesday.

Spanish police smash international drug-smuggling ring

Raids in 28 locations in the southern cities of Granada, Málaga and Seville earlier this month netted caches of money and weapons, as well as 10 luxury vehicles and over two tonnes of marijuana, Spain’s Guardia Civil police force said.

Officers arrested 36 suspects from 10 nations as part of the operation, including the suspected leader of the network, a man of Turkish origin who lived in Spain and was the target of an international arrest warrant issued by Turkey, they added.

The group “was focused on exporting large amounts of marijuana and heroin from our country to Germany and other nations in Eastern Europe”, police said.

The arrested suspects also included nationals from Argentina, Austria, Germany, Montenegro, Romania, Spain, Syria, Ukraine and Venezuela.

European Union police force Europol, which coordinated the investigation, said over 400 officers from French, Spanish and Turkish law enforcement agencies took part in the operation.

Spain is one of the main entry points for drugs into Europe given its close ties with Latin America and its proximity to Morocco.

Latin America is the main source of cocaine and Morocco is a key source of hashish, a sticky brown substance made from the resin of the cannabis plant.

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