The alleged administrator of the Leakbase cybercrime forum has been arrested by Russian law enforcement authorities, state media reported Thursday.
According to Russian Interior Ministry-affiliated news website TASS and MVD media, the suspect is a resident of the city of Taganrog. The suspect was said to be detained for creating and managing a criminal site that allowed stolen personal databases to be traded since 2021.
In addition, technical equipment and other items of evidentiary value were seized during the search of the suspect’s residence.
“The platform hosted millions of user accounts, bank details, usernames and passwords, as well as corporate documents obtained through hacking,” said Irina Volk, an official spokeswoman for the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs. “More than 147,000 users registered on the forum can buy and sell this data, as well as use it to commit fraudulent acts against citizens.”
Leakbase was destroyed in a law enforcement operation earlier this month. The US Department of Justice (DoJ) said the Cybercrime Forum is one of the world’s largest hubs for cybercriminals to buy and sell stolen data and cybercrime tools.
This includes millions of account credentials and financial information such as credit and debit card numbers, banking account and routing information, usernames and associated passwords that can be misused for account takeover attacks.
As of December 2025, the platform had over 142,000 members and over 215,000 messages between members. Visitors to the Clearnet site were greeted with a seizure banner stating that “All forum content, including users’ accounts, posts, credit details, private messages, and IP logs, has been secured and preserved for evidentiary purposes.”
Leakbase is the work of a threat actor who goes by the online aliases Chucky, BkDaz, Chuckyz, Skullrip. In reports published after the forum was taken down, KELA and TriTrace Investigations linked Chucky to a 33-year-old man from Taganrog.
