In an official statement on Wednesday, the U.S Department of Justice announced that a British citizen has been arrested in Spain in connection with the July 2020 hack of 130 Twitter accounts, including that of politicians, celebrities, and companies.
Joseph O’Connor, 22, was arrested on multiple charges including computer intrusions related to takeovers of TikTok and Snapchat user accounts and cyberstalking a juvenile victim. O’Connor is facing 10 federal in California Federal Court, the department said.
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The Justice Department also said the U.K.’s National Crime Agency and the Spanish National Police provided assistance in the investigation and the arrest.
The hacking which was part of a cryptocurrency scam comprised accounts of President Joe Biden, former President Barack Obama, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk as well.
Twitter in a statement last year said that the hack was “a coordinated social engineering attack by people who successfully targeted some of our employees with access to internal systems and tools.”