Twitter hacker ordered to pay back £4.1m worth of Bitcoin


A Twitter hacker who breached the accounts of celebrities including Barack Obama and Jeff Bezos has been forced to hand over £4million. Joseph James O’Connor, 26, was jailed in the US for the hacks which involved scamming people out of Bitcoin and threatening celebrities with the release of personal images and messages.

Now the CPS Proceeds of Crime Division has obtained a Civil Recovery Order to recover 42 Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency, that O’Connor made from the scheme, which holds the value of around £4.1m.

Read more…
Source: The Crown Prosecution Service


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