Teenage “mastermind” of Twitter’s July 15 Hack arrested

A teenager has been arrested along with two others for the July 15 Hack of high profile Twitter accounts which included the likes of Bill Gates , Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Kanye West, President Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg, Wiz Khalifa, Warren Buffett and Apple. After investigation, Twitter said 130 accounts were affected by the hack.

The hackers took over accounts belonging to cryptocurrency companies and celebrities and the hack netted Bitcoin worth more than $180,000.

17 year old Graham Ivan Clark, believed to be the mastermind, was arrested in his Tampa home early Friday. He faces 30 felony charges, including organized fraud, communications fraud, identity theft, and hacking, and is being charged as an adult.

The other two people charged by Federal authorities include Mason John Sheppard, 19, of the United Kingdom, and Nima Fazeli, 22, of Orlando, Fla. They go by the hacker aliases “Rolex” and “Chaewon,” respectively,  according to the DOJ. They were charged for acting as brokers during the hack by selling stolen Twitter user names.

According to the Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren in a news conference describing the arrest, “This could have had a massive, massive amount of money stolen from people, it could have destabilized financial markets within America and across the globe; because he had access to powerful politicians’ Twitter accounts, he could have undermined politics as well as international diplomacy.”

“This is not a game… these are serious crimes with serious consequences, and if you think you can rip people off online and get away with it, you’ll be in for a rude awakening, a rude awakening that comes in the form of a 6 AM knock on your door from federal agents,” he added.

Twitter acknowledged the action in its tweet as shown below: