By AJ Vicens
DETROIT (Reuters) – Federal authorities have unsealed an indictment accusing a U.S. Army soldier of selling and attempting to sell stolen secret phone records.
Cameron John Wagenius was arrested on Dec. 20 and was charged in the Western Texas District Court in Waco with two counts of illegal transfer of confidential phone records information, according to court records made public Monday, which did not identify his position or where. he was stopped.
“We are aware of the arrest of a soldier from Fort Cavazos,” Colonel Kamil Sztalkoper, a spokesman for the III Armored Corps, told Reuters in an email. “III Armored Corps will continue to cooperate with all law enforcement agencies as appropriate.” Fort Cavazos, formerly Fort Hood, is located in Texas.
Sztalkoper referred further questions to the Department of Defense's Criminal Investigation Division, which told Reuters it was working with law enforcement partners and would not share additional information.
Court records did not provide details on the allegations, but cybersecurity reporter Brian Krebs said on his website that Wagenius went by the name “Kiberphant0m” online and shared claims of multiple hacks, including phone records allegedly related to Vice President Kamala Harris and the President-elect. Donald Trump. Krebs said Wagenius was 20 years old, but neither court records nor the Army confirmed this.
Wagenius' attorney was not immediately available for comment.
A Texas judge ordered Wagenius sent to Seattle, where federal prosecutors handling the case are based, according to court filings.
That office is handling the prosecution of Connor Moucka and John Binns, who are accused of a series of crimes connected to a string of data breaches linked to “billions of customer service records,” unsolicited call and text history records, of banks. and financial information, payment records, driver's license numbers, passport numbers, Social Security numbers and other personal information, according to an Oct. 10 filing.
Moutka, 25, was arrested on Oct. 30 at his home in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, and is facing extradition to the US Department of Justice Canada did not immediately respond to the question Moucka. Binns is currently in prison in connection with allegations surrounding a separate hack in Turkey, where he lived.
Moucka and Binns may have been involved in the data theft and embezzlement of several consumer companies at Snowflake (NYSE: ), a data storage and processing firm, investigators said.
Allison Nixon, chief investigative officer at the company's cybersecurity Unit 221B, told Reuters that she and an unidentified colleague identified Wagenius after Moucka's treason group “threatened us for no reason.” Wagenius was a member of that group, he said.
“The turnaround time after that was the fastest I've seen in my entire career,” Nixon said. “It was amazing to watch.”
Neither the Justice Department nor the FBI immediately responded to requests for comment Tuesday.
(Reporting by AJ Vicens; Editing by David Gregorio and Bill Berkrot)