Illinois resident charged with phishing attempts on over 4,500 Snapchat accounts

A 26-year-old man from Oswego, Illinois, has been charged with phishing the Snapchat codes of nearly 600 female student athletes residing in or around Plainfield, Illinois, and students at Colby College in Maine.

According to court documents, the defendant used social engineering attacks and other resources to collect emails, phone numbers, and Snapchat usernames from victims in an attempt to gain access to their accounts.

He needed this information to trick Snapchat into sending security codes to his victims. Using anonymized phone numbers, the suspect posed as a Snapchat representative and texted over 4,500 victims to obtain Snapchat’s access codes.

Approximately 570 women provided their security codes. In at least 59 cases, the defendant successfully accessed the victims’ accounts and downloaded nude photos.

Once he had stolen these pictures, he sold and traded them on internet forums like Reddit, or with people who had hired him to hack the Snapchat accounts. In addition, he advertised that he could “get into girls Snap accounts” for others and provide content “for you or trade.”

One of the defendant’s co-conspirators was a former track and field coach at Northeastern University, who allegedly hired and paid the suspect to hack the Snapchat accounts of women he had coached or had other relationships with. He was sentenced to five years in prison and three years of supervised release in March 2024.

The defendant is charged with aggravated identity theft, wire fraud, computer fraud, conspiracy to commit computer fraud, and false statements related to child pornography.

If found guilty of all charges, the resident from Illinois faces a prison sentence of over 30 years and a fine of up to $1 million.

The defendant will have to appear in federal court in Boston on February 4th, 2026.