The U.S. is alleging that 25-year-old British national Kai West is the prolific hacker “IntelBroker.”
IntelBroker was arrested in February, the Paris, France Public Prosecutor’s Office announced yesterday, while also revealing that four members of the “ShinyHunters” collective that operated the BreachForums cybercrime forum were arrested this week.
French officials didn’t name IntelBroker or the other hackers, but the U.S. named West in a four-count indictment and complaint unsealed yesterday.
How FBI investigators made the connection between West and IntelBroker was detailed in the 15-page complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
IntelBroker Mingled Personal, Online Accounts, U.S. Alleges
The U.S. alleges that IntelBroker and the “CyberNiggers” group conspired “to steal data from a telecommunications company, municipal health care provider, an Internet service provider, and more than 40 other victims,” according to a Justice Department press release announcing the unsealing of the court documents.
West and his co-conspirators “took that stolen data, and offered it for sale online for more than $2 million,” the press release claims, adding that the alleged hackers “caused in excess of $25 million in damages to victims.”
West was arrested in France in February 2025, and the U.S. is seeking his extradition.
An undercover purchase by law enforcement in January 2023 helped investigators begin to piece together IntelBroker’s identity, according to the complaint signed by an FBI Special Agent.
IntelBroker offered for sale an API key for a particular victim for $250 in Monero cryptocurrency, the complaint said. An undercover agent sent a private message to IntelBroker asking if the threat actor would sell the data for $250 in Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency that isn’t as private as Monero. IntelBroker gave the agent a particular Bitcoin wallet address referred to as “BTC Wallet-1” in the complaint. After the agent sent the payment, IntelBroker provided the API key “as well as three purported administrator logins with a password for those logins.”
FBI personnel analyzed BTC Wallet-1’s transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain and connected four transactions and two other accounts, dubbed “West Wallet-1” and “Ramp Account-1,” that seeded BTC Wallet-1. The FBI concluded that BTC Wallet-1 was created as a pass-through wallet to obscure funds from Ramp Account-1.
Ramp Account-1 “is associated with a particular United Kingdom Provisional Driving License with the name ‘Kai Logan West,’” who also goes by the alias “Kyle Northern,” the U.S. complaint claims. That license is also associated with a particular Coinbase account that investigators said they connected to West via “Know-Your-Customer” (KYC) data. The court filing included an image of that license with some information redacted:
Both Ramp Account-1 and the Coinbase account were registered to a personal email account used by West, the U.S. claims. Investigators also tied a data storage invoice and university correspondence with the email account that they say also confirms West’s identity.
Accounts registered to West’s email account also used the same IP addresses as “IntelBroker,” the complaint alleges, and the email account also had YouTube activity that overlapped with IntelBroker.
Also read: IntelBroker Interview: The Elusive Hacker in the Shadows Talks to The Cyber Express
‘Innocent Unless and Until Proven Guilty’
Whether the U.S. has enough evidence to convict West – or elicit a plea deal – is a matter for the courts to decide. As the press release noted, “The charges contained in the Indictment and Complaint are merely accusations, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.”
West has been charged with conspiracy to commit computer intrusions, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison; conspiracy to commit wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison; accessing a protected computer to obtain information, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison; and wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
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