A 26 -year -old Alabama man was sentenced to more than a year in prison for his role in a social media hack which briefly sent the Bitcoin Prize
Soak.
Eric Council Jr. de Huntsville pleaded guilty to charges related to the January 2024 hack of the SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE US SECURITIES, according to a press release from the US Ministry of Justice.
Passing as a telecommunications customer using a fraudulent identifier, the advice used a SIM exchange technique to divert a telephone number linked to the DSA account. His co-conspirators then used it to wrongly display that the agency had approved Bitcoin funds on Bitcoin (ETF), a long-awaited regulatory step.
In a few minutes, the price of Bitcoin jumped more than $ 1,000. He crashed shortly after, losing more than $ 2,000 of value once the post was revealed as false. The SEC later approved this month the launch of Bitcoin ETF spot.
The authorities say that the Council was paid in Bitcoin for its role. He will serve 14 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.
Federal prosecutors qualified the attack on an attempt calculated to manipulate the financial markets. “The deliberate takeover of the official communication platform of a federal agency was a calculated criminal act intended to deceive the public and to manipulate the financial markets,” said the deputy director of the FBI by interim, Darren Cox. “By broadcasting false information to influence markets, the Council tried to erode public confidence and exploit the financial system”
