14 DAY TRIAL // French police have arrested Vincent L., 18, from Paris, for failing to cooperate with authorities in an investigation related to a series of fake bomb threats that took place in France, but also in other countries such as Australia, the UK, and the US, LeMonde reports.
Vincent L. is the owner of the Darkness.su website, which provides anonymous XMPP services for its users. According to French law enforcement, the service has been used by Evacuation Squad, a group that has terrorized cities across the globe by calling in fake bomb threats and sending SWAT teams to various celebrities and high-profile public figures (a phenomenon known as swatting).
Darkness.su admin refuses to cooperate
The suspect was taken to police headquarters for questioning because he refused to provide police with the encryption key necessary for officers to unlock the data on his laptop.
French investigators are desperately trying to find more clues about the identity of Evacuation Squad members. Darkness.su does not store long-term logs about the conversations or the metadata exchanged via its servers.
Investigators are hoping that Vincent L.'s laptop may hold such information, but the teen has declined to collaborate.
Evacuation Squad is selling fake bomb threats per Bitcoin
Evacuation Squad has been active in the past months, mainly via the @Ev4cuati0nSquad and @SwatTheW0rld Twitter accounts, now suspended.
On January 26, the group posted a PasteBin note (now deleted) in which it said it was taking free requests until March 1, 2016, for locations where it would make bomb threats. After March 1, the group announced it would take payments in Bitcoin for further bomb threats on custom targets.
The group was charging $5 worth of Bitcoin for schools and company headquarters, $10 worth of Bitcoin for courthouses and entire school districts, $20 worth of Bitcoin for sports events and major conventions, and $50 worth of Bitcoin for "major" sports events.
Evacuation Squad was also open to issuing fake bomb threats for other types of events, for a negotiable fee. Additionally, for an extra $5 worth of Bitcoin, the group would also frame someone else for the incident.
All of this was supposedly done by using the anonymous Darkness.su service to hack into VoIP phones and place the calls, hence the police's keen interest in Vincent L.'s laptop.
The group listed two email addresses where people could contact them, one hosted on zmail.ru and the other right on the main darkness.su domain.
