A UK hacker was ordered to repay over £4 million worth of bitcoin after hacking celebrity accounts

According to ChainCatcher, citing a report from Sky News UK, British prosecutors have revealed that 26-year-old British man Joseph James O'Connor hacked into the X accounts of several celebrities to scam bitcoin, and has been ordered to return approximately £4.1 million worth of cryptocurrency. In 2023, he was sentenced to five years in the United States for crimes including computer intrusion, wire fraud, and extortion.

In 2021, O'Connor was arrested in Spain. Later, the country's High Court ruled that since both the evidence and the victims were in the United States, the US was the most appropriate jurisdiction for prosecution, and he was extradited there. In July 2020, the social platform X suffered a large-scale hacking attack, compromising the accounts of celebrities such as Obama, Biden, and Bezos. O'Connor, together with others, used these hacked accounts to set up a scam, luring users to send $1,000 worth of bitcoin with the promise of doubling the return, thereby stealing over $794,000 worth of cryptocurrency and also threatening celebrities.

This Monday, the UK Crown Prosecution Service announced that it had obtained a civil recovery order, seizing 42 bitcoins and other assets. This valuation was determined after freezing his assets, and the prosecution ensured the freeze at the time of extradition.