Famous Twitter hack perpetrator bags three years jail term
2 min readTL;DR Breakdown
- 2020 famous Twitter hack perpetrator lands in jail.
- Hacker refunds stolen coins acquired from crypto heist.
Recall the famous Twitter hack in 2020 when accounts of popular figures like Joe Biden, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Jack Dorsey, among others, were compromised to run a BTC scam? The perpetrator of the scam, an 18-year-old teenager, Graham Ivan Clark, has been sentenced to three years in jail for the crime after he pleaded guilty.
He was sentenced on Tuesday at a virtual court hearing in Florida after a deal struck with prosecutors that the teenager would serve three years in jail and three years probation.
Clark faced 30 charges for his crimes but was sentenced as a youthful offender according to an agreement signed, making him avoid the minimum 10-year sentence for such crimes. Some of his sentence would be served in a boot camp. As part of the plea deal, Clark would grant unlimited access to any accounts he owns by giving up his passwords. Also, the accused would be prohibited from using electronic gadgets without law enforcement officials’ permission and supervision.
However, according to his defense attorney, the teenager has returned all the money he made from the cryptocurrency heist for restitution. A clause with Clarke’s sentence is that he will serve the minimum 10-year jail term in adult prison if he violates any of the agreement’s terms.
The 2020 famous Twitter hack
In 2020, the Crypto Twitter community was taken by storm when Twitter accounts of prominent individuals were hacked to run a giveaway BTC scam.
Clark during the famous Twitter hack required people to send BTC to a particular wallet address for them to get double. Many people fell for the trick as they thought it was from the actual owners of the account. According to the Florida law department, Clark, who was 17-year-old when he perpetrated the crime, was able to perform the trick by deceiving Twitter employees, thereby gaining access to the company’s internal tool.
He made close to $120,000 worth of BTC before the giveaway scam was shut down.
