Court: Spain may extradite suspect of bitcoin scams on Twitter to the US

A Spanish court has agreed to the extradition of a 23-year-old Briton to the US for his alleged involvement in the major Twitter hack of 2020. In that attack, more than a hundred prominent Twitter accounts were taken over for a bitcoin scam.

The 23-year-old Briton, known under the alias Plugwalk Joe, is suspected of, among other things, gaining illegal access to computers, committing computer fraud, laundering money and being part of a criminal organization. The suspect’s lawyer claimed that the man should not be extradited because he would receive disproportionately high sentences in the United States. but the Spanish court did not agree.

Spanish police arrested the man in July 2021 for his alleged involvement in the Twitter attack and for hacks on other social media. The Twitter hack took over accounts of 130 Twitter users, including those of prominent individuals and companies such as Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Joe Biden and Apple. On these accounts, the hackers posted messages with bitcoin addresses and the promise that anyone who transferred bitcoin would receive the cryptocurrency back doubled. The hackers gained access through social engineering, Twitter announced shortly after the attack.

Plugwalk Joe is said to have also engaged in swatting, pretending that an airport was about to be blown up and an armed person wanted to harm his family. He did this in the hope of getting a response from police services. He is also said to have blackmailed someone with nude photos.

According to the Spanish medium The Local the Spanish government still has to agree to the extradition. Plugwalk Joe can also appeal. At the time of the attack, the British native was seventeen years old. In addition to Plugwalk Joe, two Americans and another Briton have previously been charged with involvement in the hack.