A federal court in Virginia has sentenced Ahmad Umar Agha to 42 months in prison for a hacking conspiracy carried out for members of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s inner circle.
According to court filings, Agha targeted about 47 media organizations, businesses, non-governmental groups and U.S. or allied government entities between 2011 and 2024. The intrusions spread Syrian government propaganda, gathered intelligence and disrupted reporting on the regime. One compromised news account was used in 2013 to post a false report of explosions at the White House, producing a brief $136 billion decline in the value of Dow Jones stocks.
Agha also redirected visitors from a U.S. Marine Corps recruitment site and attempted to obtain access to White House social-media accounts. He had remained a fugitive for more than a decade. A co-defendant, Firas Dardar, remains at large. The Justice Department announcement details the conviction and sentence.
