Alabama Man Pleads Guilty to Hijacking SEC X Account to Pump Bitcoin

An Alabama man pleaded guilty on Monday to helping hack the SEC’s X (formerly Twitter) account in January 2024 in an attempt to mislead the market about spot Bitcoin ETF approvals.

Eric Council, a 25-year-old resident of Athens, Alabama, admitted that he was guilty of a conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft and access device fraud in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, per Bloomberg.

Council’s attorney, Dwight Crawley, was unavailable for confirmation or comment. A phone call with Decrypt ended prematurely, and additional attempts to contact Crawly were directed to the attorney’s voicemail. This article will be updated should Decrypt hear back.

Council’s guilty plea comes 13 months after the SEC’s approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs. The highly anticipated development, which opened the door to billions of dollars of institutional cash, was preempted by a false statement one day earlier saying a clutch of ETFs had been approved.

When arrested by the FBI in October, authorities alleged that Council leveraged a “SIM swapping” technique. He gained control of a phone number belonging to an SEC employee, which enabled him to gain unauthorized access to the SEC’s social media account, they said.

The alleged scheme involved crafting a fake ID using stolen personal information, and then purchasing a new SIM card that was tied to an SEC employee’s mobile account.

The fake post linked to Council, which immediately sparked questions about the SEC’s information security procedures, caused Bitcoin’s price to spike. On January 9, Bitcoin’s price jumped as high as $47,700 before plunging to $45,600.

Former SEC Chair Gary Gensler quickly debunked the false statement, which was echoed by the agency saying that its X account had been compromised.

Authorities claim that Council made suspicious search inquiries following the incident: “How can I know for sure if I am being investigated by the FBI?” and “What are the signs that you are under investigation by law enforcement or the FBI even if you have not been contacted by them?”

While a Washington judge will ultimately determine Council’s sentence, the 25-year-old may face up to 15 years in prison for identity and three years for impersonating a federal agency.

The SEC did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Decrypt.

Edited by Andrew Hayward