FBI Arrests Alabama Man for SEC Bitcoin X Account Hack

By Douglas Gillison, Chris Prentice, Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A 25-year-old Alabama man was arrested on Thursday for hacking the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s X account earlier this year as part of an alleged conspiracy to manipulate bitcoin prices, U.S. prosecutors said .

In January, a hacker posted fake news on the @SECGov The agency quickly disavowed the post and deleted it.

The incident sparked criticism of the SEC, the top U.S. market regulator, and renewed concerns about the security of social media platform X since it was acquired by billionaire Elon Musk in October 2022.

Eric Council Jr. of Athens, Alabama, was arrested Thursday morning in connection with the “SIM swapping” hack, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia said in a statement Thursday. A lawyer for the council did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Federal prosecutors allege that the council helped unnamed co-conspirators, who identified a victim, access the SEC’s X account – called “CL.” They instructed the council to switch the victim’s phone to a new device and then used the access to post the fake message to the SEC’s X account.

The post on X caused Bitcoin prices to rise by $1,000. According to the Justice Department, the council later received a Bitcoin payment for the SIM swap and shortly after drove to Birmingham, Alabama to return the iPhone.

The council then searched the Internet for phrases like “What are signs that the FBI is after you?” and sought information about deleting accounts maintained on the encrypted messaging app Telegram, prosecutors allege.

The SEC did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday’s arrest.

According to the indictment, the council was charged with conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft and access device fraud.

The day after the hack, the SEC officially approved Bitcoin ETFs, bringing the cryptocurrency further into the mainstream.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch and Douglas Gillison in Washington and Chris Prentice in New York, Editing by Michelle Price and Matthew Lewis)