A 26-year-old man from Illinois has pleaded guilty to hacking hundreds of women’s Snapchat accounts and stealing private photos that he later kept, sold, or traded online.
The defendant, Kyle Svara, admitted to carrying out the scheme over several months.
According to court records, Svara used phishing and social engineering tactics between May 2020 and February 2021 to trick victims into handing over Snapchat access codes. He impersonated Snap representatives and sent thousands of text messages requesting login credentials. Investigators say he targeted more than 4,500 people, successfully stealing credentials from roughly 570 victims and illegally accessing at least 59 Snapchat accounts.
Federal prosecutors said Svara promoted his hacking “services” on multiple online platforms, offering to break into Snapchat accounts in exchange for money or stolen content. He asked potential clients to contact him through the encrypted messaging app Kik, where he traded and distributed illicit material.
One of Svara’s clients was Steve Waithe, a former track and field coach at Northeastern University. Court documents show Waithe hired Svara to hack the Snapchat accounts of female students and athletes. Waithe was sentenced in March 2024 to five years in prison after being convicted of cyberstalking, cyber fraud, and sextortion involving at least 128 women.
Authorities also revealed that Svara independently hacked accounts belonging to women in Illinois and students at Colby College, even when he was not working for paying clients.
Svara now faces multiple federal charges, including aggravated identity theft, wire fraud, and computer fraud, along with charges related to making false statements during the investigation. The U.S. Department of Justice said Svara lied to investigators by denying involvement in hacking and claiming he had no interest in child sexual abuse material, statements prosecutors say were untrue.
If this article helped you, please consider supporting our work. Every small contribution keeps Abijita.com independent and running.
Svara is scheduled to be sentenced on May 18 before Brian E. Murphy in federal court in Boston. If convicted on all counts, he could face decades in prison.
