A Syrian man who used a hijacked news agency Twitter account to post a fake report of explosions at the White House has been sentenced to 42 months in prison, the US Department of Justice announced.
Ahmad Umar Agha, also known as "Th3Pr0," was sentenced on Thursday by a federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia. The report says he played a central role in a hacking conspiracy organized by members of former Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad's inner circle, including the commander of Syria's General Intelligence Directorate. The scheme ran from as early as August 2011 until January 2024. Agha spent more than a decade on the run.
Prosecutors say Agha hacked approximately 47 Western media outlets, businesses, NGOs, and US and allied government entities to spread the regime's propaganda. They say the conspiracy targeted the free press for reporting on the regime's atrocities.
On April 23, 2013, Agha used access to a news agency's Twitter account to post a false claim that President Obama had been injured in two explosions at the White House. The report says the post caused a temporary $136 billion drop in the value of the stocks that make up the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
Agha later told Business