A 25-year-old Alabama man was arrested Thursday for hacking the Securities and Exchange Commission’s X account earlier this year as part of an alleged plot to manipulate bitcoin prices, prosecutors said.
In January, a hacker posted fake news on the SEC’s @SECGov X account announcing that the agency had approved bitcoin exchange-traded funds, causing the cryptocurrency’s price to spike. The agency quickly dismissed it and deleted the post.
The incident sparked criticism of the SEC, the main US markets regulator, and renewed security concerns at social media platform X since it was bought by billionaire Elon Musk in October 2022.
Eric Council Jr., of Athens, Ala., was arrested Thursday morning in connection with the hack, the U.S. Attorney’s office for the District of Columbia said in a statement Thursday. An attorney for the Council did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Federal prosecutors allege that Council helped unnamed co-conspirators identify a victim with access to the SEC’s X account — dubbed “CL.” They instructed Council how to switch the victim’s phone to a new device and then used the access to post message forgery in the X account of the SEC.
The post on X caused bitcoin prices to rise by $1,000. The council later received the bitcoin payment for the SIM card exchange and soon after he went to Birmingham, Ala., to return the iPhone, according to the Justice Department.
The council then conducted online searches for phrases such as “what are some signs the FBI is following you” and requested information about the deletion of accounts held on the encrypted messaging app Telegram, prosecutors allege.
The SEC did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Thursday’s arrest.
According to the indictment, Council is charged with conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft and access device fraud.
A day after the hack, the SEC officially approved bitcoin ETFs, which have brought the cryptocurrency further into the mainstream.
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