In brief
- Joseph James O’Connor was convicted for a 2020 SIM swapping attack that allowed him to take over X accounts belonging to celebrities and brands.
- The scheme ultimately swiped around 42 Bitcoin, 235 Ethereum, and stablecoins valued $794,000 worth of crypto at the time.
- Now he has to pay it back, but the value of the coins has grown to about $5.4 million.
A British man that hacked the social media profiles of former president Barack Obama, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, and other celebrities and brands to scam people out of their Bitcoin has been ordered to pay it back—over $5 million worth of BTC and other coins at the current price.
Joseph James O’Connor was charged for his role in a 2000 SIM-swapping scheme that led to the takeover of social media profiles for dozens of major accounts, and the subsequent theft of cryptocurrency valued at $794,000 at the time.
“Joseph James O’Connor targeted well-known individuals and used their accounts to scam people out of their crypto assets and money,” said Chief Crown Prosecutor for the Proceeds of Crime Division Adrian Foster, in a statement.
“We were able to use the full force of the powers available to us to ensure that even when someone is not convicted in the UK, we are still able to ensure they do not benefit from their criminality,” he added.
O’Connor pleaded guilty in 2023 and was sentenced to five years in prison by a judge in the Southern District of New York. He was ordered to pay $794,012.64 in forfeiture at that time, and is now responsible for the civil recovery order from the U.K.’s Crown Prosecution Service. The £4.1 million in Bitcoin is worth about $5.4 million.
According to the CPS, its civil recovery order pertains to around 235 Ethereum, 42 BTC, and 143,000 BUSD, Binance’s now-depreciated dollar-backed stablecoin.
Scammers have frequently utilized hacked social media profiles to trick unsuspecting users into parting with their crypto. O’Connor’s scams prompted victims to send a small amount of Bitcoin to an address with a promise of more in return, while more popular scams of late have centered around meme coins.
For example, earlier this year, hackers promoted a fake UFC meme coin on the Solana blockchain after an Instagram account takeover, making away with $1.4 million in proceeds.
Similarly, a malicious takeover of the McDonald’s Instagram account resulted in $700,000 for hackers on a fake Grimace token last year, and numerous celebrities and other brands have had their accounts hijacked to perpetrate pump-and-dump meme coin scams.
A mid-year report from blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis indicated that more than $2.1 billion has been stolen from crypto users via crimes thus far in 2025, a growing share of which is contributed to personal wallet compromises.
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