British man who hacked Musk and Obama's accounts to commit Bitcoin scam will have to return R$ 29 million

Source: PortaldoBitcoin Original Title: British man who hacked Musk and Obama's accounts to carry out Bitcoin scam will have to repay R$ 29 million Original Link: A British man who hacked into the social media profiles of former President Barack Obama, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, and other celebrities and brands to steal funds in Bitcoin has been ordered to repay the money — over $5 million in BTC and other cryptocurrencies, which are currently worth about R$ 29 million.

Joseph James O'Connor was accused for his role in a SIM swap scheme in 2020, which led to the takeover of social media profiles of dozens of important accounts and the subsequent theft of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies valued at $794,000 at the time.

“Joseph James O'Connor targeted known individuals and used their accounts to commit scams and steal money and cryptocurrencies from people,” said Adrian Foster, Chief Prosecutor of the Crime Products Division, in a statement.

“We have been able to use all the powers at our disposal to ensure that even when someone is not convicted in the United Kingdom, we can still ensure that this person does not benefit from their criminal acts,” he added.

O'Connor pleaded guilty in 2023 and was sentenced to five years in prison by a judge from the Southern District of New York. At the time, he was ordered to pay US$ 794,012.64 in forfeiture and is now subject to a civil recovery order issued by the Crown Prosecution Service of the United Kingdom.

The civil process investigated a theft of 42 units of Bitcoin, 235 of Ethereum, and 143,000 coins of BUSD, a stablecoin pegged to the dollar, totaling an updated amount of around R$ 29 million.

Scams to Steal Bitcoin

Scammers often use hacked social media profiles to deceive unsuspecting users and trick them into handing over their cryptocurrencies. O'Connor's scams lured victims into sending small amounts of Bitcoin to an address with the promise of receiving more in return, while more recently popular scams have focused on memecoins.

For example, earlier this year, hackers promoted a fake cryptocurrency with the UFC meme on the Solana blockchain after hacking an Instagram account, taking away US$ 1.4 million in profits.

Similarly, a malicious account takeover of McDonald's on Instagram resulted in $700,000 for hackers with a fake Grimace token last year, and several celebrities and other brands had their accounts hacked to perpetrate cryptocurrency market manipulation scams.

A semi-annual report from the blockchain analysis company Chainalysis indicated that more than $2.1 billion has been stolen from cryptocurrency users through crimes so far in 2025, with an increasing portion of this amount due to compromises of personal wallets.