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FBI agents on Thursday morning arrested a 25-year-old Alabama man on charges related to the hack in January of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s X account, which led to the price of bitcoin spiking by more than $1,000, the Department of Justice announced.
The man, Eric Council Jr., is charged with conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft and access device fraud, the DOJ said. The Athens resident is expected to appear later Thursday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.
Council is accused of conspiring with others to hack the SEC’s account and send a fake tweet in the name of the agency’s chairman, Gary Gensler, on Jan. 9 that said, “Today the SEC grants approval for #Bitcoin ETFs for listing on all registered national securities exchanges.”
Bitcoin’s price rose by more than $1,000 after that bogus tweet was posted.
Shortly afterward, the SEC regained control of its social media account, and announced the tweet was false and due to a hack.
“Following this corrective disclosure, the value of BTC decreased by more than $2,000 per bitcoin,” the DOJ noted.
The hack occurred at a time when the SEC was considering whether to approve for sale exchange-traded funds that held that cryptocurrency.
A day after the hack, the SEC approved rule changes that allowed the creation of bitcoin ETFs in the United States.
The DOJ said that Council is accused of using a so-called SIM swap scheme to help pull off the hack. SIM swaps involve a fraudster duping a cellular service provider into given them control of a victim’s phone.
“The indictment alleges that Eric Council, Jr. unlawfully accessed the SEC’s account on X by using the stolen identity of a person who had access to the account to take over their cellphone number,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole Argentieri in a statement.
His “co-conspirators then allegedly used this unauthorized access to the X account to falsely announce that the SEC had approved listing Bitcoin ETFs,” Argentieri said.
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