Operator of dark web forum arrested on cyber charge

— A Peekskill man has been arrested for allegedly running the dark web hacking forum known as BreachForums.

Conor Brian Fitzpatrick, who went by the screen name “pompompurin,” is charged in a Virginia federal court with one count of conspiracy to commit access device fraud, court documents say.

Fitzpatrick, who is either 20 or 21 years old, was arrested this week at his home in Peekskill, say the court documents.

The arrest was first reported by Bloomberg.

“When I arrested the defendant on March 15, 2023, he stated to me in substance and in part that: a) his name was Conor Brian FitzPatrick; b) he used the alias “pompompurin,” and c) he was the owner and administrator of “BreachForums,” the data breach website referenced in the Complaint,” said FBI Special Agent John Longmire in published court documents.

Under the online name “pompompurin,” Fitzpatrick allegedly has been one of the most prominent names in cyberleaks in recent years.

He was a high-profile member of the RaidForums site, which was seized by the FBI in 2022. The feds described RaidForums as “a popular marketplace for cybercriminals to buy and sell hacked data.”

BreachForums was a new site Fitzpatrick allegedly created to fill the void created by the RaidForums shutdown.

The feds say BreachFormus was commonly used by hackers to leak stolen data, and is believed to have been the largest data leak forum of its kind — accused among other things of illegally hosting the illicitly obtained databases of over 1,000 companies,

Last week, BreachForums was being used in attempts to sell personal information belonging to U.S. politicians, authorities said. The data allegedly had been stolen in a hacking of D.C. Health Link, the health care provider for U.S. House members and their families.

Fitzpatrick posted a $300,000 bond and was released from jail on Thursday. He’s set to appear in federal court in Virginia on March 24.