A 26 -year -old man from Alabama has been sentenced to more than a year in prison for his role in a social networks that briefly sent the price of Bitcoin.
soaring.
Eric Council Jr. De Huntsville declared himself guilty of the charges linked to the January 2024 of the X Broken and Values Commission of the United States, according to a press release from the United States Department of Justice.
Making passing through a telecommunications customer using fraudulent identification, the Council used a SIM-SWAP technique to kidnap a telephone number linked to the SEC account. His co-conspirators used it to falsely publish that the agency had approved Bitcoin Exchange Spot Funds (ETF), a regulatory milestone.
In a matter of minutes, the price of Bitcoin increased by more than $ 1,000. He crashed shortly after, losing more than $ 2,000 in value once the position was revealed as false. The SEC later that month approved the launch of Spot Bitcoin ETF.
The authorities say that the council was paid in Bitcoin for his role. It will be 14 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.
Federal prosecutors called for attack a calculated attempt to manipulate financial markets. “The deliberate acquisition of the official communications platform of a federal agency was a calculated criminal act aimed at deceiving the public and manipulating financial markets,” said the interim deputy director of the FBI, Darren Cox. “By disseminating false information to influence markets, the Council tried to erode public confidence and exploit the financial system”
