On-Chain Sleuth ZachXBT Discovers Links Between Hack of Two Hollywood Celebrity Twitter Accounts and Convicted British Hacker Gurvinder Bhangu

The hacked accounts were used to promote fraudulent meme coins.

Hollywood celebrities’ hacked X accounts used to promote fraudulent meme coins, leading to over $530,000 in stolen funds. On-chain sleuth ZachXBT has uncovered links between the hack and Gurvinder Bhangu (Gurv), a British hacker previously convicted for hacking Instagram accounts and blackmail.

According to ZachXBT's findings, two Hollywood celebrities' X accounts were hacked and used to promote scam meme coins. The posts from the hacked accounts resulted in over $530,000 in stolen funds.

The investigation began after Sydney Sweeney's X account was hacked on July 2 and posts were made promoting a Solana-based token called “$SWEENEY.” The scam token quickly generated over $10 million in trading volume before crashing in price. The hack was made possible by a SIM swapping attack that hijacked Sweeney's Verizon phone number.

ZachXBT's research suggests that Gurv, who was previously convicted for hacking Instagram accounts and blackmail, received verification codes for Sweeney's account via Telegram. The proceeds from the attack were initially sent to an exchange on Solana, where they were converted into Bitcoin and Ethereum and then distributed to multiple addresses.

On July 9, another 1.5 ETH was sent to an exchange from a wallet connected to the Sweeney SIM swap. ZachXBT linked the Sweeney hack to a similar attack on Bob Odenkirk's X account on the same day. The hackers launched and posted two scam meme coins, KIRK and SAUL, from Odenkirk's account.

Currently, wallets connected to the Sweeney and Odenkirk scams contain approximately $488,000. The remaining funds were transferred to crypto casinos and used to purchase gift cards. ZachXBT concluded its investigation by calling on UK law enforcement to take action against Gurv, given the large amount of evidence available.

These fraud cases are part of a broader trend of celebrities being used to promote fake meme coins, either through hacked accounts or through social engineering fraud.

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