A joint regulation enforcement operation has dismantled LeakBase, one of many world’s largest on-line boards for cybercriminals to purchase and promote stolen information and cybercrime instruments.
The LeakBase discussion board, per the U.S. Division of Justice (DoJ), had over 142,000 members and greater than 215,000 messages between members as of December 2025. These making an attempt to entry the discussion board’s web site (“leakbase[.]la“) are actually greeted with a seizure banner that claims it was confiscated by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as a part of a global regulation enforcement effort.
“All discussion board content material, together with customers’ accounts, posts, credit score particulars, non-public messages, and IP logs, has been secured and preserved for evidentiary functions,” the banner reads.
Obtainable in English and accessible over the clearnet, LeakBase supplied hacked databases, together with a whole bunch of thousands and thousands of account credentials and monetary info reminiscent of credit score and debit card numbers, banking account and routing info, usernames, and related passwords that may very well be abused to facilitate account takeovers.
In accordance with a report printed by Flare in April 2023, LeakBase explicitly prohibited customers from peddling or publishing Russian databases, probably in an try and keep away from scrutiny. The discussion board has been energetic since June 2021.
LeakBase is among the aliases for Chucky, who additionally goes by the monikers Chuckies and Sqlrip throughout numerous underground boards. Per SOCRadar, the risk actor has a observe document of sharing huge collections of databases, typically containing delicate info from international entities.
What’s extra, SpyCloud revealed early final month that the discussion board had been down for a couple of days and that Chucky was searching for a brand new internet hosting supplier. Among the different identified directors and moderators of LeakBase embrace BloodyMery, OrderCheck, and TSR.
As a part of the disruption train codenamed Operation Leak that passed off on March 3 and 4, 2026, authorities executed search warrants, made arrests, and performed interviews within the U.S., Australia, Belgium, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, and the U.Ok.
In a coordinated announcement, Europol mentioned LeakBase specialised within the sale of stealer logs, which include archives of credentials harvested by way of infostealer malware. The data may very well be weaponized to conduct account takeover, fraud, and different cyber intrusions.
The company mentioned round 100 enforcement actions have been performed internationally, together with taking unspecified measures towards 37 of probably the most energetic customers of the platforms.
“The FBI, Europol, and regulation enforcement companies from world wide executed a takedown of LeakBase, one of many largest on-line cybercriminal platforms, seizing customers’ accounts, posts, credit score particulars, non-public messages, and IP logs for evidentiary functions,” mentioned Assistant Director Brett Leatherman of the FBI’s Cyber Division.
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A brand new evaluation from Kela has linked the administrator of the lately seized LeakBase cybercrime discussion board to the alias Chucky, who additionally used monikers reminiscent of beakdaz throughout underground platforms since at the very least 2013.
“Additional OSINT and information leaks evaluation of the e-mail tackle and the ‘beakdaz’ profiles recognized a number of social media accounts and a VK profile linked to a person from Taganrog,” KELA mentioned. “Further proof from leaked Russian databases related the identical e-mail tackle, a number of telephone numbers, and different on-line accounts to this particular person.”
TriTrace Investigations’ co-founder Ilya Shumanov has since linked Chucky to a 33-year outdated Russian from Taganrog named Artem Kuchumov, with “beakdaz” described as an outdated alias utilized by him when he began his “shadow profession” greater than 10 years in the past.
