SAN FRANCISCO (dpa): The FBI has smashed the notorious LulzSec hacker ring after identifying its leader and turning him into an informant, Fox News reported Tuesday. The report identified the leader as Hector Xavier Monsegur, an unemployed 28 year-old father of two, who agreed to turn on his colleagues last year so as to avoid jail time and stay with his two young children. Three other ringleaders were arrested Tuesday and two more were charged with conspiracy, the report said. “This is devastating to the organization,” an FBI official involved with the investigation was quoted as saying. “We're chopping off the head of LulzSec.” Widely known by his online handle Sabu, Monsegur was arrested in June 2011 at the Jacob Riis housing complex in Manhattan, just weeks after LulzSec had perpetrated its most damaging campaign, hacking the CIA, Sony, Fox and other institutions and causing billions of dollars in damage around the world, according to some estimates. An offshoot of the Anonymous hacker group, Lulz Sec was also behind the December hack on US security company Stratfor. Monsegur was charged with aggravated identity theft, related to the selling of stolen credit card numbers, and pleaded guilty in August, in a deal that saw him start working with the government from FBI offices. He kept up his leadership of the hacking ring, but allowed FBI agents to monitor his online activities, enabling them to alert companies and institutions that were being targeted. He even persuaded his colleagues to call off a successful hack on the CIA's website. “You're knocking over a bee's nest,” he allegedly warned his associates. “Stop.” An indictment against five other members of LulzSec was due to be unsealed later Tuesday. The five charged in the indictment were named as Ryan Ackroyd, aka “Kayla” and Jake Davis, aka “Topiary,” both of London; Darren Martyn, aka “pwnsauce” and Donncha O'Cearrbhail, aka “palladium,” both of Ireland; and Jeremy Hammond aka “Anarchaos,” of Chicago. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/8V31X Tags: Arrests, FBI, LulzSec Section: Crime, Latest News
