Alabama man denies conspiring to inflate money from his SEC X bill to pump bitcoin.

In an effort to deceive the market about spot Bitcoin ETF approvals, an Alabama man admitted guilt on Monday to having helped hack the SEC’s X ( previously Twitter ) account in January 2024.

Eric Council, a 25-year-old native of Athens, Alabama, admitted that he was innocent of a conspiracy to commit aggravated identity fraud and entry system scams in the U. S. District Court for the District of Columbia, per .

Council’s lawyer, Dwight Crawley, was absent for verification or comment. A telephone contact with ended prematurely, and further attempts to contact Crawly were directed to the attorney’s voice. If hear again, this article will be updated.

Council’s guilty plea comes 13 weeks after the SEC’s acceptance of place Bitcoin ETFs. A misleading statement one day before that claimed a number of ETFs had been approved preempted the highly anticipated growth, which opened the door to billions of dollars of administrative money.

When arrested by the FBI in October, officials alleged that Council utilized a “SIM switching” approach. According to them, he gained control over an SEC employee’s telephone number, allowing him to obtain the SEC’s social media account without permission.

The alleged scheme involved creating a false ID using unreliable personal data before purchasing a new SIM card that was linked to a SEC company’s wireless bill.

The false article linked to Council, which immediately sparked questions about the SEC’s data security procedures, caused Bitcoin’s value to rise. On January 9, Bitcoin’s price jumped as high as$ 47, 700 before plunging to$ 45, 600.

The agency claimed that its X bill had been compromised, but previous SEC Chair Gary Gensler immediately refuted the bogus statement.

How can I be certain that the FBI is looking into me if Council made cautious search inquiries following the incident, according to authorities? and” What are the indications that law enforcement or the FBI are looking into you even if you have not received a call from them”?

Although a prosecutor in Washington will ultimately decide Council’s word, the 25-year-old could face three years in prison for impersonating a federal agency and up to 15 years in prison for identification theft.

Decrypt contacted the SEC for opinion, but they did not respond right away.