Pierluigi Paganini
March 22, 2023
U.S. law enforcement arrested last week a US man that goes online with the moniker “Pompompurin,” the US citizen is accused to be the owner of the popular hacking forum BreachForums.
The news of the arrest was first reported by Bloomberg, which reported that federal agents arrested Conor Brian Fitzpatrick from Peekskill, New York.
The man has been charged with soliciting individuals with the purpose of selling unauthorized access devices.
The BreachForums hacking forum was launched in 2022 after the law enforcement authorities seized RaidForums as a result of Operation TOURNIQUET.
pompompurin always confirmed that he was ‘not affiliated with RaidForums in any capacity,’
The law enforcement authorities have yet to shut down the website, while another admin of the forum that goes online with the alias “Baphomet” announced that he is taking the control of the platform.
Baphomet initially added that he believes that the feds haven’t had access to the infrastructure.
On March 21, 2023, Baphomet, which is the current administrator of BreachForums, announced that the hacking forum has been officially taken down.
The decision to shut down the forum is the response of the administrator to the increasing pressure by law enforcement. He likely suspected that the feds have gained access to the site’s components taking over it.
Baphomet also added that “it’s not the end” of the forums, he is likely planning to launch a new platform in the future.
“Hello everyone. Please consider this the final update for Breached. I will be taking down the forum, as I believe we can assume that nothing is safe anymore. I know that everyone wants the forum up, but there is no value in short term gain for what will likely be a long term loss by propping up Breached as it is. I want to make it clear, that while this initial announcement is not positive, it’s not the end. I’m going to setup another Telegram group for those who want to see what follows. You are allowed to hate me, and disagree with my decision but I promise what is to come will be better for us all.” reads the last message published by Baphomet. “As stated in the attached message please give me 24 hours to get some rest and give thought to how we move on from here. I will be back online after that, and we will talk. I am going nowhere. Please see my final confirmation of this here: http://baph.is/finalupdate.txt.asc“
We cannot exclude that Baphomet can launch a new platform or work with competitor marketplaces.
“Interestingly, he stated that the Telegram channel would maintain operation and that he was looking to create new infrastructure which would replace BreachForum even working with competitor marketplaces. As of writing, the onion site has been taken down and is unreachable.” reported Darkowl.
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