The alleged administrator of the cybercrime forum Leakbase has been arrested by Russian law enforcement authorities, state media reported on Thursday.
According to TASS news agency and MVD Media, a news website affiliated with Russia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, the suspect is a resident of the city of Taganrog. The suspect is said to have been detained since 2021 on charges of creating and managing a criminal website that enabled the trading of stolen personal databases.
Additionally, technical equipment and other items of evidentiary value were seized during the search of the suspect’s residence.
“The platform stored hundreds of millions of user accounts, bank account information, usernames and passwords, as well as corporate documents obtained through hacking,” said Irina Volk, official spokeswoman for Russia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs. “The more than 147,000 users who have registered on the forum could potentially buy, sell, or use this data to commit fraud against the public.”
LeakBase was dismantled in a law enforcement operation earlier this month. The US Department of Justice (DoJ) said cybercrime forums are among the world’s largest hubs for cybercriminals to buy and sell stolen data and cybercrime tools.
This included hundreds of millions of account credentials and financial information such as credit card numbers, debit card numbers, bank account and routing information, usernames, and associated passwords that could be used in account takeover attacks.
As of December 2025, the platform had over 142,000 members and over 215,000 messages between members. Visitors to the Clearnet site were shown a seized banner that read, “All forum content, including user accounts, posts, credentials, private messages, and IP logs, is securely stored for evidentiary purposes.”
LeakBase is the work of threat actors operating under the online aliases Chucky, beakdaz, Chuckies, and Sqlrip. In a report released after the forum’s closure, KELA and Tri-Trace Investigations linked Chucky to a 33-year-old individual from Taganrog.
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