Dutch Police Arrest Alleged ShinyHunters Figure Accused of Planning Two Murders

Brett Leathermann, the FBI's cyber division lead, said in a video message Tuesday that Dutch authorities had arrested one of the alleged leaders of ShinyHunters. He said the Dutch High Tech Crime Unit moved quickly to protect victims and preserve critical evidence, and vowed the bureau would go after the remaining hackers after the arrest.

In a separate statement, Dutch police confirmed that an unnamed 24-year-old man from Amsterdam was arrested under Dutch law on September 15. The man was scheduled to appear in court on Tuesday and has been remanded into custody for at least 90 days. Police said he was arrested for participating in a criminal organization, referring to ShinyHunters. After his arrest and the seizure of his devices, police said a lot of information was found on his laptop, including about two murders that should be committed abroad. He is therefore also being investigated for attempting to orchestrate the murders. Dutch authorities said that investigation is separate from the investigation into ShinyHunters.

ShinyHunters is a cyber criminal gang accused of hacking into companies to steal reams of data and then threatening to publish the data if victims do not pay a ransom. Dutch authorities said the gang is accused of data breaches at Pornhub, Ticketmaster, and U.S. telecommunications giant AT&T. The hacking group also took responsibility for a breach of Dutch phone provider Odido. Authorities said the man in custody has not been arrested in relation to the Odido hack.

Independent security journalist Brian Krebs, who was first to report the arrest, and other media outlets have named the arrested man as Pepijn van der Stap. Bloomberg profiled Van der Stap in 2024 as a cybersecurity researcher who also moonlighted as a criminal hacker who extorted companies. According to recent reporting by Bloomberg and Reuters, Van der Stap was arrested earlier this month by police at the offices of Neo Security, where he is employed as chief technology officer. The raid reportedly involved flash-bang grenades. A representative for Neo Security did not immediately respond to TechCrunch's request for comment. When asked by TechCrunch, a representative of the ShinyHunters group said Van der Stap "has no association with us."

News of the arrest comes days after the FBI reportedly told its own agents and employees that their personal information, including names, addresses, job titles, and Social Security numbers, was exposed in a cybersecurity incident. The FBI has not yet publicly confirmed a breach, but the ShinyHunters gang said it took personal and sensitive data belonging to mostly all of the FBI's agents and applicants by breaching its careers website and job application portal. Among the sample of 5,000 or so agents whose data was stolen from the portal, reporters also found data relating to agents' blood and urine samples, as well as psychiatric reports, which sparked fears of a major counterintelligence challenge to prevent an adversarial government from obtaining the data.

When contacted by TechCrunch, Leathermann did not comment. An FBI spokesperson declined to comment on questions relating to the arrest. For their part, the ShinyHunters hackers reiterated that the breach of the FBI's servers was not a financially motivated attack, but was intended to challenge public claims made by the FBI, which the hackers say contain false allegations about the group. The hackers told TechCrunch they will not publish the stolen FBI data and added that the breach was "to make a point and to dispute the allegations made against us and we have done so."

Editor's Summary

Dutch police arrested a 24-year-old Amsterdam man described by the FBI as an alleged ShinyHunters leader; he is also being investigated over an alleged plan to arrange two murders abroad and has been remanded for at least 90 days. The ShinyHunters group is accused of hacking more than 140 organizations and has claimed a breach of FBI systems, while a representative denies that the named suspect, Pepijn van der Stap, is associated with the group.