A Liverpool man has been jailed for creating a high-profile Twitter hack.
Joseph O’Connor hijacked more than 130 prominent accounts on the social media platform in July 2020 including the site’s current owner Elon Musk.
Future US president Joe Biden, Kanye West and Bill Gates were other notable public figures targeted alongside leading brands such as Apple and Uber.
O’Connor, who went by the online name PlugwalkJoe, used the accounts to promote a BitCoin scam estimated to have been seen by 350 million users.
Thousands of those who saw the tweets on the various prominent figures’ accounts were duped into believing the cryptocurrency giveaway was real.
The 24-year-old also stole close to $800,000 worth of cryptocurrency and threatened to leak nude images of American actress and singer Bella Thorne.
He was arrested in the Spanish coastal town of Estepona a full year later.
O’Connor was extradited to the US in April and pleaded to various hacking charges including conspiracy to commit money laundering and two counts of stalking.
On Friday, he was sentenced to five years behind bars, agreed to forfeit a sum of money equal to $794,000 and make restitution to victims of the crime.
Shortly after his guilty plea, US Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite Jr. said: “O’Connor’s criminal activities were flagrant and malicious, and his conduct impacted multiple people’s lives.
“He harassed, threatened, and extorted his victims, causing substantial emotional harm.
“Like many criminal actors, O’Connor tried to stay anonymous by using a computer to hide behind stealth accounts and aliases from outside the United States.”