BreachForum’s owner pleads guilty to possessing videos of minors
BreachForum’s owner, Conor Fitzpatrick, better known by his alias Pompompurin, pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography.
Image by Cybernews.
BreachForum’s owner, Conor Fitzpatrick, better known by his alias Pompompurin, pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography.
The feds arrested 20-year-old Fitzpatrick in late March over his involvement in curating the infamous cybercrime marketplace BreachForums.
While Fitzpatrick’s indictment was postponed several times, once reportedly over a suicide attempt, court hearing documents from July 13th, seen by databreaches.net and shared by users on Twitter, have shed new light on the case.
According to the most recent information, Fitzpatrick was charged with conspiracy to commit access device fraud, access device fraud leading to unauthorized solicitation, and possession of child pornography. Pompompurin reportedly pled guilty on all three counts.
While the first two counts could be expected in a case against the administrator of a major forum for exchanging stolen data, the last one raised some eyebrows.
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The court docket says that devices in Fitzpatrick’s possession had “videos depicting prepubescent minors and minors who had not attained 12 years of age engaging in sexually explicit conduct.”
According to the court information, Pompompurin’s devices also stored over 600 images that were considered child pornography by the authorities.
Fitzpatrick‘s trial is scheduled to take place on November 17th. As of now, he’s not incarcerated but on a $300,000 bond, with additional restrictions such as no computer access, no contact with minors, no access to websites focused on data leaks, and no usage of VPNs.
Cybercriminals commonly used BreachForums to exchange data stolen from businesses and other organizations. For example, information stolen from a medical insurance company DC Health Link, including sensitive information on US House and Senate members, was posted on the website.
Numerous other leaks have appeared on the forums since its inception last year. Attackers allegedly posted data from US-based software company Beeline, Taiwanese hardware and electronics giant Acer, video game maker Activision, messaging app WhatsApp, and many others.
Pompompurin likely created BreachForums after the FBI seized a similar website called RaidForums. Pompompurin often took responsibility, suggesting him as the likely leader of BreachForums: for example, issuing a statement after the forum’s domain was suspended last year.