A man from the United Kingdom was sentenced Friday in San Francisco to five years in federal prison for his role in a massive array of cybercrimes involving social media, the U.S. Department of Justice said.
Joseph O'Connor, 24, also known as Plugwalkjoe, was extradited from Spain in April and pleaded guilty in May to charges filed in California and New York involving a hack of Twitter, takeovers of user accounts on Snapchat and TikTok, and cyberstalking two people. He also stole cryptocurrency and laundered the proceeds, prosecutors said.
O'Connor and his associates got access to the account of"Victim-1" via a SIM swap and used their unauthorized access to post self-promotional messages. O'Connor also threatened to release personal, sensitive material related to Victim-1 to people who joined a specific Discord server. O'Connor also cyberstalked a minor, known as"Victim-3," in June and July 2020. O'Connor"swatted" this user by contacting law enforcement and falsely saying that Victim-3 was making threats to shoot people. O'Connor also called later that day and told police he was planning to kill people at Victim-3's address. This resulted in multiple law enforcement agencies descending on the address in reference to an armed and dangerous person.
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