Syrian Hacker Who Served Assad Regime Sentenced to 42 Months in US Prison
A federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia has sentenced Ahmad Umar Agha, a Syrian national who used the handle “Th3Pr0”, to 42 months in prison for his role in a hacking conspiracy run on behalf of the former Assad regime. Prosecutors said the scheme was organized by members of Bashar al-Assad’s inner circle, including the head of Syria’s General Intelligence Directorate, and that Agha spent more than a decade as a fugitive before being brought to the United States.
The conspiracy targeted about 47 Western media outlets, businesses, NGOs and US and allied government entities, with the aim of spreading regime propaganda and punishing the press for its coverage of the Syrian war. Its best-known act came on April 23, 2013, when a hijacked news agency Twitter account was used to falsely claim that President Obama had been hurt in explosions at the White House, causing a brief drop of roughly $136 billion in the value of Dow Jones Industrial Average stocks. Agha was also linked to the compromise of a US Marine Corps recruitment site and to attempts to take over White House social media accounts.
Court filings cited victim losses including about $35,000 a day for six months at an online content company and roughly $480,000 at a global NGO. Agha and co-conspirator Firas Dardar were charged in 2014 and indicted in 2018; Dardar remains a fugitive, while another associate, Peter Romar, was extradited from Germany and pleaded guilty in 2016. The Justice Department and CyberScoop also reported on the sentencing, as did The Record.