Ahmed Hossam Eldin Elbadawy, a 24-year-old from Texas, has pleaded guilty to federal charges of wire fraud conspiracy and aggravated identity theft. Elbadawy, identified as an early member of the cybercrime group "Scattered Spider," entered his plea a year ago, but the details were not made public until prosecutors filed an order of forfeiture this week.
Prosecutors are seeking the forfeiture of approximately $17.6 million in assets from Elbadawy, including virtual currency, luxury vehicles, jewelry, and designer bags. Specifically, the forfeiture request includes over $14.19 million in Bitcoin, more than $3.4 million in Ethereum, and nearly $63,000 in cash. Other items listed are a lifted golf cart, three luxury vehicles, a Muhammad Ali painting, luxury watches, gold jewelry, a collection of designer bags, and 150 pairs of shoes.
Elbadawy and his co-conspirators, Noah Michael Urban and Tyler Robert Buchanan, are linked to a series of extortion attacks that occurred between at least 2021 and 2023. Urban, from Florida, was sentenced to 10 years in prison last year, while Buchanan, from Scotland, pleaded guilty to multiple cybercrimes in April and awaits sentencing.
The financially motivated Scattered Spider group, a subset of the broader "The Com" network, used social engineering tactics to obtain credentials and steal sensitive company data. Their goal was to identify high-net-worth employees with virtual currency accounts containing millions of dollars.
An indictment filed against Elbadawy and his co-conspirators in late 2024 detailed at least 12 victim companies, including three in Southern California. The victims spanned various sectors, including entertainment, telecommunications, technology, business process outsourcing, IT, cloud services, and virtual currency. Authorities identified 29 victims whose systems were compromised, leading to the theft of virtual currency from many of their wallets.
Significant thefts included nearly $6.35 million in virtual currency in September 2021, $571,000 in June 2022, and almost $1.7 million in December 2022.
Federal authorities filed charges against five individuals with ties to Scattered Spider in 2024: Elbadawy, Urban, Buchanan, Evans Onyeaka Osiebo, and Joel Martin Evans.
While early leaders of Scattered Spider have faced legal action, the broader "The Com" network has continued to evolve. The FBI describes "The Com" as having thousands of members, typically aged 11 to 25, and splintered into three main subsets: Hacker Com, In Real Life Com, and Extortion Com. These interconnected networks are involved in a range of criminal activities, including swatting, extortion, sextortion of minors, production and distribution of child sexual abuse material, violent crime, and various other cybercrimes. The terms of Elbadawy's plea agreement have not been publicly released.
