Joseph O'Connor's 2020 Twitter Bitcoin Scam Exposed Millions and Led to Prison Sentence
In July 2020, Joseph O'Connor from Liverpool hacked more than 130 Twitter/X accounts as part of a Bitcoin giveaway scam, targeting high-profile figures such as Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Elon Musk. Operating under the alias PlugwalkJoe, he and accomplices gained access to Twitter's internal systems through social engineering of a small number of employees to obtain login details.
Within the compromised accounts, they posed as celebrities and instructed followers to send Bitcoin to various wallets with the false promise of doubling their money. A total of 426 transfers occurred between 15–16 July 2020. The breach reached an estimated 350 million Twitter users who viewed the fraudulent tweets from these high-profile accounts.
O'Connor was arrested in Spain in 2021, extradited to the US for trial, and sentenced to five years in prison. He was released in 2025 and has been ordered to hand over £4.1 million in stolen cryptocurrency. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has recovered 42 Bitcoin and other digital currency. Investigators believe additional crypto linked to O'Connor was obtained through hacks conducted with other young people. The total stolen amount was over 12.86 BTC, worth about $110,000 at the time (£83,500), now valued at approximately $1.2 million.
Adrian Foster of the CPS Proceeds of Crime Division noted that authorities can seize criminal proceeds even if the individuals involved are not convicted in the UK.
