Teen 'mastermind' pleads guilty to celeb Twitter hack

17 March 2021

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Graham Ivan Clark was arrested on 30 charges

A US teenager has pleaded guilty to hacking several high-profile Twitter accounts in a large-scale Bitcoin scam.

Graham Ivan Clark was 17 when he co-ordinated the scam - which hijacked the profiles of celebrities, including Kim Kardashian West, Kanye West, Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Barack Obama.

He would spend three years in prison as part of his plea deal, a Florida court filing said.

But Clark has already served 229 days of this three-year sentence.

Now 18, but sentenced as a "youthful offender", he may also be able to serve some of the sentence at a boot camp, the Tampa Bay Times reported.

But Clark will also be banned from using computers without permission and supervision from law enforcement.

The scam

The hack, on 15 July last year, promoted a scam in which hijacked celebrity accounts encouraged followers to donate bitcoin to coronavirus-relief projects.

"Everyone is asking me to give back," a tweet purportedly sent from Mr Gates's account said. "You send $1,000, I send you back $2,000."

More than $117,000 (£84,200) of the cryptocurrency was collected through the scam.

The money had been handed to the authorities to be returned to the victims, Clark's lawyer said.

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Technology companies Apple and Uber were also hacked

It was alleged Clark had imitated a member of Twitter staff to gain access to the company's networks and worked with two other hackers to complete the heist.

Nima Fazeli, 22, of Orlando, and Mason Sheppard, 19, of Bognor Regis, have been charged with federal crimes.

The family of Mr Sheppard have declined to comment and the Home Office said it "does not comment on extradition requests".

Ishilove:
FTC

Ishilove:



Nairaland does something to you

See this kid doing wonders, while his Nigerian counterparts are on NL shouting "red pill" upandan.

Kondomatic:
Imagine say nah SARS arrest this guy.

pocohantas:


As an American or Nigerian?

Kondomatic:
As in, imagine if it was a Nigerian that did this to Nigerian celebs and SARS arrested him. I am sure his case won't appear in court in the next five years.

pocohantas:


Lol. His people won’t even know where he is. E go just disappear and we would be wondering if he is in Agadez.

giftedben:
This is the kind of friends I want to have.

emmanuel596:
They will use his intelligence over there but if its Nigeria they will kill him if he is not a northern fulani

pocohantas:


Agbaya

Ishilove:
FTC