The operators of an infamous breached credentials site have pleaded guilty to trading in stolen information, according to Canadian police.
Defiant Tech, which owns the LeakedSource website, entered the plea on Friday at a court in Ottowa, a brief notice from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) stated.
The charges of “trafficking in identity information and possession of property obtained by crime” came after an investigation was launched by the police in 2016, when the RCMP found that servers hosting LeakedSource were located in Quebec.
Project “Adoration,” as it was known, saw the RCMP’s newly formed National Division Cybercrime Investigative Team receive assistance from the Dutch National Police and the FBI.
In December 2017, Jordan Evan Bloom, 27, from Thornhill, Ontario, was arrested on suspicion of making an estimated C$247,000 ($200,000) from the business.
The now-defunct site had a database of around three billion passwords and identity records, which users could access via simple search functionality for a fee. This information is said to have been purchased from hackers and lifted from the public domain. Data was taken from big-name companies like LinkedIn and MySpace.
"We are pleased with this latest development,” said superintendent Mike Maclean, officer in charge of criminal operations for RCMP National Division.
“This is all thanks to the relentless efforts put by our men and women working in the National Division Cybercrime Investigative Team. I am immensely proud of this outcome as combating cybercrime is an operational priority for us."
A second man is suspected to have conspired with Bloom, but charges have so far not been brought.