On the other side of this pond, cybersecurity student Kai West, 20, has been charged in the Southern District of New York with a host of serious offenses. He is charged with conspiracy to commit computer intrusions, wire fraud, and selling Americans’ sensitive personal and corporate data. West, who many might know as “IntelBroker,” is alleged to have headed a hacker collective known as CyberN. He ran Forum-1, a dark web marketplace that has since gone offline. He maintained Monero should be used for illegal purchases. This decision came back to haunt him when he agreed to accept Bitcoin from an undercover FBI agent.
Between 2023 and 2025, West listed opportunities to sell stolen data on dark web forums a minimum of 158 times. He successfully recruited new members to grow his group, CyberN. In his capacity as the putative “owner” of Forum-1, West enabled the exchange of breached information.
West also favored Monero, cryptocurrency that obscures whom you’re paying and how much. He did one important thing wrong that ended up getting him caught. An undercover FBI agent lured him in, ultimately getting him to agree to accept $250 worth of Bitcoin in exchange for access credentials. This deal gave West's descendants their first and most important connection to West’s true identity.
Additional scrutiny showed an extensive chain of links linking West to the “IntelBroker” persona, though. We therefore conclude that he viewed all nine videos on his personal Google account. Those same videos were eventually uploaded by IntelBroker to Forum-1. Moreover, West’s Coinbase and email accounts had the exact same name, IP address, and passwords used to log into forums.
What our subsequent investigation uncovered was even more shocking. The same identification Kai West had used was associated with a Coinbase account opened in the same name as Kyle Northern. All of these digital breadcrumbs helped corroborate the story with pictures of his involvement in the illicit activities.
A Kai West is an advanced native speaker of English currently based in the UK. He’s now learning cybersecurity at a local university. This case shows the considerable difficulty of pursuing cybercriminals. Most of the time, they do it under the shield of the dark web and cryptocurrencies.
If convicted on all counts, West faces the prospect of decades behind bars. In addition, the prosecution wins points when underscoring how seriously U.S. authorities take cybercrimes. They are particularly keen to investigate criminal activity related to the trade of stolen PII in dark web marketplaces.
