Eric Council, a 25-year-old from Athens, Georgia, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft. The plea was entered in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia following his arrest on October 17, 2024. Council was involved in a scheme to hack into the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) X account.
The announcement came from U.S. Attorney Edward R. Martin, Jr., Supervisory Official Antoinette T. Bacon of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, SEC Inspector General Deborah Jeffrey, and FBI Special Agent in Charge Sean Ryan of the Washington Field Office.
Council faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine with sentencing set for May 16, 2025. According to court documents, he conspired with others since January 2024 using Subscriber Identity Model (SIM) attacks or "SIM swaps" for financial gain.
A SIM swap attack involves fraudulently inducing a mobile carrier to reassign a phone number from a victim's SIM card to one controlled by criminals. This allows access to valuable information associated with the victim’s accounts.
On January 9, 2024, Council executed a SIM swap on the phone account linked to the official @SECgov X account aiming to make fraudulent posts. He impersonated an authorized user at an AT&T store in Huntsville, Alabama using fake identification created with his portable ID card printer.
After obtaining control over the victim's phone line and receiving password reset codes for @SECGov X account on a new iPhone purchased specifically for this purpose, Council shared these codes with co-conspirators before returning the iPhone for cash in Birmingham.
The conspiracy used these codes to post false information claiming SEC approval of Bitcoin ETFs causing BTC prices initially spike by over $1,000 but later fall more than $2,000 after SEC regained control confirming it as unauthorized activity resulting from security breach
In June 2024 FBI searched Council’s residence recovering fake IDs printers laptops containing templates searches related investigations hacks including terms like “SECGOV hack” “telegram sim swap” among others
Council admitted receiving approximately $50k during previous six months performing such swaps This case investigated by multiple agencies including FBI Washington Field Office SEC-Office Inspector General US Attorney’s Office District Columbia Computer Crime Intellectual Property Section Fraud Section Market Integrity Major Frauds Unit Justice Department Criminal Division Assistance provided FBI Birmingham Field Office
Prosecution handled Assistant United States Attorney Kevin Rosenberg CCIPS Trial Attorney Ashley Pungello Fraud Section Trial Attorney Lauren Archer Valuable assistance provided Assistant United States Attorney John Hundscheid Northern District Alabama
For more information about SIM swapping visit: https://www.ic3.gov/PSA/2024/PSA240411