Florida teenager arrested in connection to Twitter hack targeting Barack Obama, Elon Musk, and others

A 17-year-old from Tampa was arrested along with two men on Friday in connection to a breach of Twitter that took place earlier in July.

The FBI and the Justice Department believed Graham Ivan Clark was responsible for hacking the accounts of former President Barack Obama, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, Elon Musk, and several other prominent users to push a Bitcoin scam.

Mason Sheppard of Bognor Regis in the United Kingdom and Nima Fazeli of Orlando, Florida, were also charged, according to the DOJ. Sheppard was charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and the intentional access of a protected computer. Fazeli was charged with aiding and abetting the intentional access of a protected computer.

Authorities said Clark was the “mastermind” of the hack. The teenager raked in more than $100,000 in bitcoin in one day with the scam, according to the Hillsborough State Attorney’s Office.

Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren said that Clark will be prosecuted in Florida for his alleged crimes.

“This defendant lives here in Tampa, he committed the crime here, and he’ll be prosecuted here,” Warren said. “I want to congratulate our federal law enforcement partners — the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California, the FBI, the IRS, and the Secret Service — as well as the Florida Department of Law enforcement. They worked quickly to investigate and identify the perpetrator of a sophisticated and extensive fraud.”

Authorities believe Clark targeted Twitter employees “with access to internal systems and tools” on July 16 to gain access to the accounts of celebrities and politicians. Clark was given several charges, including one count of organized fraud, 17 counts of communications fraud, 10 counts of fraudulent use of personal information, and one count of access to a computer or electronic device without authority.

“Working together, we will hold this defendant accountable,” Warren said. “Scamming people out of their hard-earned money is always wrong. Whether you’re taking advantage of someone in person or on the internet, trying to steal their cash or their cryptocurrency — it’s fraud, it’s illegal, and you won’t get away with it.”

Twitter thanked the authorities for their work tracking down the alleged hacker.

“We appreciate the swift actions of law enforcement in this investigation and will continue to cooperate as the case progresses. For our part, we are focused on being transparent and providing updates regularly,” the company stated.

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