Man Pleads Guilty To Stealing Social Media Accounts And Cryptocurrency In Nationwide Scheme

A 23-year-old man from Brockton, Massachusetts, admitted Wednesday to working with his co-conspirators to illegally access a dozen victims' social media accounts and steal hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of cryptocurrency from them, prosecutors announced.

Court documents and statements made in connection with the plea proceeding showed Erik Meiggs admitting to conspiring with one or more individuals to target "victims who appeared to have significant amounts of cryptocurrency and those who had high value or 'OG' (slang for 'original gangster') social media account names," the Department of Justice said in a statement released Wednesday.

Meiggs and others "conspired to hack into and take control of these victims' online accounts to obtain things of value, including OG social media account names and cryptocurrency" using an illegal practice known as "SIM-swapping," according to the DOJ.

"SIM-swapping attacks involve convincing a victim’s cellphone carrier to reassign the victim’s phone number from the SIM card (Subscriber Identity Module card) inside the victim’s cellphone to the SIM card inside a cellphone controlled by the cybercriminals. Cybercriminals then pose as the victim with an online account provider and request that the provider send account password-reset links or an authentication code to the SIM-swapped device now controlled by them," the DOJ explained, citing the indictment against Meiggs.

With the reassigned number, cybercriminals can then reset the victim's account log-in credentials and use those credentials to "hack into" the victim's accounts, giving them access to the victim's account without authorization.

Citing the indictment, the DOJ said Meiggs and his co-conspirators targeted at least 10 identified victims around the U.S. Members of the group stole, or attempted to steal, more than $530,000 worth of cryptocurrency from these victims. Meiggs also took control of two victims' "OG" social media accounts.

The DOJ did not reveal if Meiggs and his group had targeted victims outside of the country.

According to the DOJ, Meiggs pleaded guilty to each of seven counts in an indictment that charged him conspiracy, wire fraud, computer fraud and abuse and aggravated identity theft.

Meiggs is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 15. He faces a mandatory minimum penalty of two years in prison, which is to be served consecutively to any other sentence.

No additional information on Meiggs' alleged co-conspirators was revealed by authorities.

The DOJ said the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation are investigating the case.