A Canadian man accused of operating the LeakedSource.com website, a major repository of stolen online credentials, has been arrested and charged with trafficking in billions of stolen personal identity records, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said on Monday.
The site, which was shut down in early 2017, had collected details from a string of major breaches and made them accessible and searchable for a fee.
The man, 27-year-old Jordan Evan Bloom, is due to appear in a Toronto court on Monday to hear charges that as administrator of the site he collected some C$247,000 (approximately R2.45-million) from the sale of stolen records and associated passwords.
Bloom was charged on December 22, the RCMP said, as part of its cybercrime team's investigation, dubbed Project Adoration. The RCMP said the assistance of Dutch national police and the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation was "essential to the investigation."
The charges against Bloom include trafficking in identity information, mischief to data, and possession of property obtained by crime, the RCMP said.
Reporting by Alastair Sharp