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⚡️🇺🇸👮‍♂️ NEW - IntelBroker, a hacker specializing in Monero, was arrested after accepting Bitcoin from the FBI.

Kai West, a 20-year-old cybersecurity student from the UK, has been charged with conspiracy to commit computer intrusions, wire fraud and the sale of sensitive personal and business data.

Operating under the alias "IntelBroker", West allegedly led a hacker collective known as CyberN\ and posted offers to sell stolen data on dark web forums at least 158 times between 2023 and 2025.

West ONLY accepted Monero for confidentiality reasons.

But in January 2023, an undercover FBI agent persuaded him to accept a $250 payment in Bitcoin in exchange for access credentials.

And it was this simple payment in BTC that led to his downfall…

The Bitcoin wallet provided by West had been fed by another wallet, itself fed by a Ramp account, a KYC platform that offers transactions between fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

Investigators then quickly traced it back to Kai West, who was arrested by law enforcement.

The U.S. Department of Justice stated that West's activities had caused an estimated $25 million in damages.

If convicted, West faces decades in prison.

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Discussion

FLASH 6mo ago

🗞️ https://www.dlnews.com/articles/people-culture/monero-hacker-intelbroker-caught-accepting-btc-from-fbi/

Relatively Irrelevant 6mo ago

It’s ironic that in this case, KYC helped authorities catch a bad actor who was allegedly stealing and selling KYC data.

ManyKeys 6mo ago

Seems this was a case of incompetence more than anything else.

xiangcai 6mo ago 💬 6

so...Monero has a protocol built-in privacy??

nostr:nevent1qqsfedeh3558822m6dq4ew2709d09w2lpz740g8ul70hxfh3tetk4aspzemhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuurjd9kkzmpwdejhgch9qwl

🧙🏼‍♂️Homemdosaco 6mo ago

Don't reuse addresses.

trichom 6mo ago

Support the fbi, use bitcoin! Don't be cipher punk, be fbi punk! LOL

MoneRogue 6mo ago

T Y R A N T P U N K

KD 🦘 6mo ago

Another positive use case for Bitcoin

Lucid 6mo ago

Use nKYC??

Wax On Wack Off 6mo ago

lol what a retardio

jgbtc 6mo ago

"fed from another wallet" so a dust attack? I wonder, would it have helped if he had used lightning?

Saberhagen The Nameless 6mo ago

Probably so. The main issue was him sending the funds on a transparent blockchain to a KYC account connected to his identity.

Neigsndoig IQ 120 6mo ago

So his OPSEC was bad.

That's why you are intentional with what you allow in, and what you do on the internet.

BTC-Satanist 6mo ago

Kudos to Monero !

Saberhagen The Nameless 6mo ago

"an undercover FBI agent persuaded him to accept a $250 payment in Bitcoin in exchange for access credentials.

And it was this simple payment in BTC that led to his downfall…

The Bitcoin wallet provided by West had been fed by another wallet, itself fed by a Ramp account, a KYC platform that offers transactions between fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin."

caleb 6mo ago

lol what an idiot if true.

Would be simple to swap from a fresh wallet address to lightning or even to monero directly - then no info would be learned.

Hard to believe a pro hacker wouldn’t do better

MoneRogue 6mo ago

Not to mention accepting crypto from a KYC wallet.

caleb 6mo ago

Yeah doesn’t add up that a hacker type wouldn’t only accept BTC a payment to a fresh address on a self custody node then immediately leave the chain.

It’s incompetent and if he weren’t 20 I’d bet it wasn’t real / a frame job

Ape Mithrandir 6mo ago

Probably a lot of parallel construction surveillance went into this case that the FBI can't reveal.

MoneRogue 6mo ago

Super Testnet probably thinks the FBI "traced" his XMR this way.