A 17-year-old teenager from Tampa, Florida was arrested on Friday for allegedly hacking dozens of Twitter accounts, including those of several high-profile users, last month.

Seventeen-year-old hacker Graham Clark was accused of "scamming people across America" in connection with the Twitter hack last July 15.

Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren has filed 30 felony charges against Clark for allegedly "masterminding" the massive Twitter hack, as per Business Insider.

(Photo : Ravi Sharma)
Twitter is a good platform and a micro social media for trending news and current affairs.

Clark is facing 17 counts of communications fraud, one count of organized fraud, one count of fraudulent use of personal information of 30 or more victims, 10 counts of fraudulent use of personal information and one count of access to computer or electronic device without authority. 

In a press statement, Warren said Clark conducted a scheme to defraud and stole the identities of high-profile people by posting messages in their names and directing victims to send Bitcoin to accounts associated with the teen.  

The state attorney noted that the scheme reaped over $100,000 in Bitcoin from Americans all over the country, including Florida, in just one day.

Warren said Clark is not an ordinary 17-year-old guy. He noted that the hack made by Clark was a "highly sophisticated attack on a magnitude not seen before." He added that the teen could destabilize financial markets or undermine American politics.

"This massive fraud was orchestrated right here in our backyard, and we will not stand for that," Warren said.

According to an NBC News report on Friday, Clark's mother said her son was innocent. "I believe he didn't do it. I've spoken to him every day... I'm devastated," she said.

A WFLA report said Clark will not face federal charges at this point and that the state was handling prosecution because of the flexibility of Florida law in prosecuting minors.

Meanwhile, the Department of Justice (DOJ) also arrested on Friday two more people, who are also involved with the massive Twitter hack. Mason "Chaewon" Sheppard, 19, of the United Kingdom and Nima "Rolex" Fazeli, 22, of Orlando, Florida.

In a press release, the DOJ said Shappard was charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, wire fraud, and the intentional access of a protected computer. On the other hand, Fazeli was charged with abetting and aiding the intentional access of a protected computer.

There were previous reports wherein hackers used Twitter accounts of high-profile people. Twitter's internal controls were used when the Twitter employees were tricked into giving access to the tools to control prominent people's or companies' accounts, Twitter said.

The compromised accounts was used to tweet that they were feeling "generous" and will match bitcoin donations. The DOJ said the strategy caught more than 400 transfers to the scammers' cryptocurrency wallet. There were more than 100 accounts compromised. Victims of the hack include former President Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, former Vice President Joe Biden, Jeff Bezoes, Michael Bloomberg, Floyd Mayweather, Elon Musk, Kim Kardashian, Kanye West, Uber, and Apple.

Twitter has expressed gratitude on the actions made by the law enforcement via tweet. "We appreciate the swift actions of law enforcement in this investigation and will continue to cooperate as the case progresses. For our part, we are focused on being transparent and providing updates regularly," Twitter wrote. 

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