Joseph O’Connor, known in some corners of the internet as PlugWalkJoe, was indicted on an array of charges relating to a May 2019 cryptocurrency exchange hack. During the attack, he is alleged to have absconded with digital assets valued at approximately $784,000.
In the criminal scheme, authorities believe O'Connor utilized SIM swap attacks (an artifice of fraud where 2FA phone calls and text messages are rerouted to a device controlled by the scammer) on three separate executives at an undisclosed cryptocurrency company to take control of their employers systems. O’Connor may have then diverted over 7 BTC, 407 ETH, 6363 LTC and 770 BCH from wallets maintained by the corporation on behalf of their users to wallets under his own control.