The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on Tuesday humiliated a former administrator of a three-year prison violation in connection with his role in running the Cybercrime Forum and owning Child Sexual Abuse Materials (CSAM).
Conor Brian Fitzpatrick, 22, of Peakskill, New York, (aka Ponpamplin), pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy on an access device, solicitation on an access device, and possession of child sex abuse material. Fitzpatrick was originally arrested in March 2023 and pleaded guilty in July.
As part of the judicial agreement, Fitzpatrick is said to have agreed to confiscate more than 12 breachable devices used to implement the scheme, as well as more than 100 domain names that exceed the cryptocurrency, which represent the illegal proceeds of the operation.
“Connor Fitzpatrick personally benefited from the sale of a huge amount of stolen information, ranging from private personal information to commercial data,” said U.S. Attorney Eric S. Siebert of the Eastern District of Virginia.
“These crimes are so extensive that it is difficult to quantify damage, and the human costs of collecting child sexual abuse material are immeasurable. Criminals cannot hide in the darkest corner of the internet, and use all legal measures to guide them to justice.”
Ententengeding occurred after the US Court of Appeals in the Fourth Circuit released its opinion on January 21, 2025, reorganising the case of Res Tinsing, leaving Fitzpatrick’s previous sentence of 17 days. Fitzpatrick was previously declared in January 2024 with his time as creator and administrator of Breachforums and 20 years of supervised releases.
Launched in March 2022 following the demolition of RAIDFORUMS by law enforcement, Breachforums is a crime market that allows bad actors to buy and sell and trade stolen data related to well-known companies around the world. The forum is estimated to have 330,000 members at its peak and holds personal records of over 14 billion.
The hacker market was rebooted many times despite many efforts to shut it down, and was born under the revolving door of a new domain. In July 2024, the entire database of original violation forms was leaked online, releasing information about the members.
Then, last month, Shiny Hunter, who took over the reins after Baphomet’s arrest in 2023, argued that the infamous cybercrime market had compromised and was under the control of international law enforcement. At the time of writing, the Copycat forum has gone offline on its latest domain and states that it has “decided to go dark” along with 14 other e-Crime groups, including Lapsus $ and scattered spiders.
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