- Conor Fitzpatrick, alias Pompompurin, was sentenced to three years in prison to exploit Breachforums and have child’s sexual abuse equipment
- Breachforums, which held more than 14 billion files and had 330,000 members, has resurfaced several times despite the application efforts
- The forum is now offline, with its maintainers and other cybercriminal groups like Lapsus $ and Spander Spider choosing to “become dark”.
Conor Brian Fitzpatrick, the person behind the infamous underground piracy forum of Breachforums, will spend time in prison after the rebuilding of his initial sentence.
In March 2023, Fitzpatrick (alias Pompompurin) was arrested to exploit Breachforums and was accused of conspiracy of access, solicitation of access and possession of sexual children’s access and possession (CSAM) devices.
In January 2024, Fitzpatrick pleaded guilty on the three accounts and was sentenced to 17 days in prison, as well as 20 years of supervised release.
Make the darkness
However, the prosecutors appealed, arguing that the penalty was far too indulgent given the extent of his crimes. The American Court of Appeal for the fourth circuit agreed, declaring that “a 17 -day sentence does not hold the end of determining the sentence and was therefore considerably unreasonable”.
Consequently, Fitzpatrick was sentenced – his previous conviction overturned and replaced by three years in federal prison.
“Conor Fitzpatrick has personally benefited from the sale of large quantities of stolen information, ranging from private personal information to commercial data,” said American lawyer Erik S. Siebert for the Virginie Oriental District.
Breachforums emerged in March 2022, rubble of raidforums raidforums, previously dismantled, a similar market which was closed by the police. According to The Hacker News, Breachforums had some 330,000 members at its peak and held more than 14 billion individual files.
The police tried to close it many times, but the forum continued to appear. Baphomet, the administrator who took over when Fitzpatrick was arrested, was also arrested in 2023, leaving the forum in Shinyhuters, a group of cybercriminals responsible for some of the most devastating data violations in recent history.
At the time of the press, Breachforums is offline, his maintainers also saying that they wanted to “go dark”. The other groups that have also been dark in the past two weeks included the $ and the scattering of Spider.
Via The Hacker News
