Unmasking IntelBroker: Kai West’s OPSEC Blunders and the FBI’s Takedown : OpSec | Torhoo darknet markets

If this is correct, the OpSec mistakes here are worse than I expected.

However, the crypto to fiat can be difficult and risky due to banking and financial institution requirements. LE know this and dig in this pot.

This retard thought that lying about being a Serbian living in Russia is going to deter the feds lmfao.

West's ego was his downfall. He made simple human mistakes that could've been easily avoided.

A hacker is not a security guy. Your ability to write a code or exploit vulnerability in the digital environment doesn't make you a security pro. This is a common misconception and it breaks necks. Over and over again, the same story.

Seems like a solid post!

Thanks for taking the time for some proper formatting.. or at least prompting for it ;)

The intelbroker in the 'interview' with sam bent, and this list of opsec mistakes just throw me off.

I guess he really was just a red teamer.

He couldn't seem to compartmentalize things well enough.
Account linked to his name.
Microsoft and VPNs linked to his irl identity.
Cleartext in his seizable emails?

This lad sucked logs at Opsec

Perfect OPSEC requires 100% the dotting of all 'i's and crossing of all 't's. This can be a difficult proposition to pull off in the long term. Especially if you do some things while high.

Imagine having a Coinbase account linked to your real identity while you are a famous threat actor.

50 years if convicted, he better have something to offer or work for them US laws are crazy.

Just one more thing that makes me think Satoshi is a fake profile to hide the creation of Bitcoin by some government entity. As the past 5 years or so have passed we've seen all the govs talk about CBDC and we know how BTC is super traceable.
If I had a Bitcoin I'd bet it this is true. No matter where you live in the world, the grip is tightening.

very bad opsec mistakes, but i feel bad for the guy, spoken to him about 3 or 4 times and he seemed like a genuinely good guy. sad sad.... but i think his ego lately is what caused this downfall.

good recap, appreciate it

When the last seizure happened and Baph was "arrested," I was friends with Intelbroker's best friend at the time. He told me that Intel was in London to meet with the Cracked owner, though I didn't actually believe him because I thought he was being fed fake information from Intel to detrace himself. Who would have believed it?

It also didn't cross my mind that such a "famous hacker" could be in the UK of all places. It seemed impossible that he could be that retarded.

Clearly, I was wrong.

Right after the second BF seizure, Intel disappeared for about a week, and nobody was able to contact him. In the BF private matrix room, there was a discussion about what could have possibly happened to him, and the moderator, WillyWonka, told us that Intel had apparently been paranoid for a while. This was later confirmed by the mutual friend Intel and I had, who told me that Intel had "buried" his laptop and was experiencing extreme panic attacks, which was why he was gone.

Again, I thought it was fake because, why would you be in the UK if you were breaching European governments, lol?

It's so funny to me that I probably knew Intel's real location before the feds did. His OPSEC was really pathetic.

Using the same computerc and vpn for hacking activities while he have millions of money?

Security will always be at odds with convenience. Should've created a new online identity completely unrelated to his normal one before launching something as big as BreachForums.

IntelBroker was arrested in 2018 under the alias PartialDuplex for swatting and bomb threats. He was a member of Apophis Squad. He also used the aliases "GnosticPlayers", "DoxingMethod", "SeekedNow", "TheRealCr4xy", and "kaibandit123".

The UK NCA gave the kid a chance and made him a trainee. He fucking blew it.

This whole case is just a wild reminder that it only takes a few lazy mistakes to bring everything down. Using Bitcoin instead of Monero, tying exchange accounts to your real name, reusing emails, accessing accounts from the same IPsthese are basic OPSEC failures that shouldn't be happening at that level. He clearly got comfortable thinking his VPN and aliases were enough, but stuff like watching a YouTube video and posting it seconds later under your handle? That’s just sloppy. Once the feds get a few strong links, they don’t stop digging. If you're running high-profile ops and still overlapping your personal and operational identities, you're basically handing them the case on a platter.

[*]Behavioral Giveaways: West posted YouTube videos on BreachForums seconds after viewing them, e.g., “ROY BEE - Kiss Me Again” on April 6, 2024, at 05:18 UTC, right after viewing it on his email account

That is some wild correlation there

I'll say one thing, he looks exactly like you would expect, as soon as I heard the name of his "hacking group" which is probably made out of incels just like him, I put a face to the name, safe to say I was right, he looks like a fucking geek, or someone that would shoot up a public place and write a manifesto about it.

As for his opsec, there isn't much to talk about, he's a pure idiot and should never touch a computer with malicious intents ever again cause he's only gonna hurt himself in the process.

The part where the cops connected his account watching a music video and minutes after posting the same video in the forum was pretty funny and shows how even the smallest things are to be considered.