LES Resident Focal Point of Huge Hacking Investigation

A Lower East Side resident is at the center of a big hacking scheme that authorities say cost businesses worldwide billions of dollars.  Earlier today, federal officials announced charges against five people accused of orchestrating an online assault of big corporations such as Sony and Fox, as well as the CIA and other government agencies.

The ringleader, Hector Monsegur, is a resident of the Jacob Riis Houses.  According to Fox News, he was arrested in June of last year and has been cooperating with authorities to take down the hacking organization.  Here’s How Fox told the story:

It was one of the hottest days of the year and evening temperatures were still sweltering when two FBI agents wearing bulletproof vests under their dark suits climbed the stairs of the Jacob Riis housing complex in New York’s Lower East Side on June 7, 2011. Drenched in sweat, they knocked on the steel door of a sixth-floor unit. It swung open to reveal a man in his late twenties wearing jeans and a white T-shirt. “I’m Hector,” he said. The agents were suddenly face-to-face with “Sabu,” the computer genius they had stalked for months, a quarry so elusive they hadn’t pinned down his identity and location until just weeks before. The suspected ringleader of the Anonymous offshoot group LulzSec, Hector Xavier Monsegur and his web minions had just completed a month-long reign of terror…

Monsegur is an unemployed computer programmer with two children.  He never went to college and is a self-taught hacker. The tale of how investigators caught him and coaxed him into helping bring down the shadowy hacking network is almost too outlandish to be believed. You can read the full story here.