A 27-year-old Illinois man, Kyle Swara, has been sentenced to 76 months in prison for orchestrating a large-scale Snapchat hacking scheme. Over the course of several months, he illegally accessed 517 women’s accounts, stole their private photos, and sold or traded the stolen images.
The scheme operated between May 2020 and February 2021. During that time, Swara collected victims’ email addresses, phone numbers, and Snapchat usernames before using social engineering techniques to trick them into handing over access to their accounts.
Posing as a Snapchat support representative and using anonymous phone numbers, he sent text messages to more than 4,500 women requesting their verification codes. Around 570 victims shared the codes, allowing him to gain unauthorized access to 517 Snapchat accounts.
Once inside the accounts, Swara downloaded nude and semi-nude photos. To prevent the victims from regaining control, he enabled two-factor authentication on the compromised accounts himself.
He then sold or traded the stolen images on online forums or provided them to people who paid him to hack specific Snapchat accounts. Swara also openly advertised his hacking services on social media platforms, including Reddit.
One of his clients was former Northeastern University track and field coach Steve Waithe, who paid him to hack the Snapchat accounts of women he had coached or knew personally. In March 2024, Waithe was sentenced to five years in prison followed by three years of supervised release.
Investigators also found that Swara targeted women on his own, including neighbors, classmates, acquaintances, and students at Colby College in Maine, as well as women living in and around Plainfield, Illinois.
A search of his Mega cloud storage account uncovered not only the stolen intimate photos but also 530 images and 600 videos containing child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy sentenced Swara to 76 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.
He was indicted in December 2025 and pleaded guilty in February 2026 to multiple charges, including aggravated identity theft, wire fraud, computer fraud, conspiracy to commit computer fraud, and making false statements in connection with a child sexual abuse material investigation.
