On May 13, PANews reported, according to Cointelegraph, that U.S. prosecutors recommended a two-year prison sentence for Eric Council Jr., an accomplice in the hacking case of the SEC's official X account. Council assisted in controlling the SEC account through a SIM card swap attack, posting a false tweet in January 2024 claiming that a Bitcoin ETF had been approved, which caused severe market fluctuations. Prosecutors noted that his crimes involved forgery of identification documents, telecom fraud, and transnational collaboration, among other elements. This false information caused the price of Bitcoin to surge by over $1,000 in a short time until former SEC Chair Gary Gensler clarified the situation. Council has pleaded guilty and will be sentenced on May 16. This case comes at a time when the Trump administration is replacing several acting prosecutors in various judicial jurisdictions, and the Southern District Court of New York just sentenced former Celsius CEO Mashinsky to 12 years in prison last December.
