The X account of UK member of Parliament and Leader of the House of Commons, Lucy Powell, was hacked to promote a scam crypto token.
In a series of now-deleted posts on April 15, Powell’s X account shared links to a token called the House of Commons Coin (HOC), describing it as “a community driven digital currency.”
A member of Powell’s staff confirmed to the BBC that the account had been hacked and that “steps were taken quickly to secure the account and remove misleading posts.”
DEX Screener shows the HOC token saw limited interest from would-be investors, achieving a peak market cap of just over $24,000 shortly after the posts from Powell’s account. The token has seen a total of 736 transactions and a trading volume of just $71,000.
While Powell hasn’t promoted a cryptocurrency before, it isn’t unheard of for political figures to back real crypto tokens. US President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump both launched and promoted memecoins days before they entered the White House, sparking criticism from the president’s political rivals and even some supporters.
Argentine President Javier Milei also promoted a token called LIBRA, which quickly crashed in value and has caused a political scandal in Argentina and calls for a probe into Milei’s involvement with the token.
Powell’s account hack follows similar attack on Ghana’s president
In March, the X account of Ghana’s President John Mahama saw a similar breach, with attackers taking over his account for 48 hours to promote a scam cryptocurrency called Solanafrica.
The scammers made similar crypto-promoting posts to Mahama’s 2.4 million followers, claiming that the scam project was “making payments fast and free across the continent with support from Solana and the Bank of Ghana.” The president’s team regained control of Mahama’s X account two days later. His spokesman, Kwakye Ofosu, told the AFP that the account “has now been fully restored, and we urge the public to disregard any suspicious cryptocurrency-related posts from the handle.”