French authorities have reportedly arrested two people suspected of being involved in cyber-attacks against the country’s tax agency and other organizations.

An 18-year-old suspect was arrested in the Paris region on August 18, one day after the tax agency hack became public. He was placed in pretrial detention two days later. Prosecutors believe he is a member of the French-speaking hacking group known as ‘ZeroBytes,’ which claimed responsibility for the attack.

A second suspect, who is under 16, was arrested on August 26. He was later released while investigators examined his electronic devices.

The tax agency said an attacker gained unauthorized access to its systems in late June. The hacker later claimed to have stolen personal and tax information belonging to more than 600,000 people.

The 18-year-old is also accused of involvement in two other hacking cases from 2024 and 2025. Prosecutors are investigating several charges linked to the attacks, with possible penalties of up to 10 years in prison and a €300,000 fine.

ZeroBytes has claimed attacks against several French organizations, including government agencies, schools, France Travail, SFR and Intermarché.

Russian web developer faces 175 years in prison for large-scale bank fraud

A web developer accused of being involved in an international cyber-fraud scheme that targeted bank customers across the US has been extradited to the United States from Georgia.

Sergei Anatolyevich Filimonov, 36, a Russian national, allegedly created fake websites mimicking sites of major banks. Filimonov and his accomplices used sponsored search links to send victims to the fake pages, where victims entered their banking login details.

The stolen credentials were allegedly used to access bank accounts, check balances and make unauthorized wire transfers. Prosecutors say Filimonov helped build and maintain the online systems used in the scheme, including databases containing more than 5,000 stolen login credentials.

The US Justice Department previously seized the domain web3adspanels[.]org, which allegedly served as a backend system for storing stolen banking credentials.

Filimonov faces multiple charges, including conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud, access device fraud, bank and wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft. If convicted, he faces a minimum of two years in prison and a maximum sentence of up to 175 years.

A Singaporean man pleads guilty in a $245M crypto theft case

Malone Lam, a Singaporean citizen, has pleaded guilty in a US court to his role in an international cybercrime scheme that stole more than $245 million in cryptocurrency.

Prosecutors said Lam was the group’s leader. The gang used social engineering to target cryptocurrency investors. In one case, the group posed as Google Support to gain access to a victim’s Google account. The perpetrators then obtained the victim’s private cryptocurrency wallet key and stole the funds.

The group allegedly spent the stolen money on luxury cars, watches, jewelry, designer handbags, private jets, expensive homes and nightclub events. Some nightclub spending reportedly reached $500,000 in a single evening.

Court documents say the criminal enterprise operated from at least October 2023 to May 2025, with members in several US states and other countries. Lam, who used online aliases including “Anne Hathaway” and “King Greavy,” helped choose victims and coordinate the group’s activities.

Lam was arrested at his Miami rental home in September 2025. He pleaded guilty to one count of participating in a RICO conspiracy. A status hearing is scheduled for December 8, 2026.

A cyberstalker sentenced to 15 years for AI-generated obscene images

James Strahler II, 37, was sentenced to 15 years in US prison for cybercrimes involving harassment, threats and sexually explicit images, including images created with artificial intelligence.

Strahler pleaded guilty in April to cyberstalking, producing obscene images involving children and publishing digital fakes. Prosecutors said he used more than 24 AI platforms and more than 100 web-based AI models on his phone.

From December 2024 to June 2025, Strahler harassed at least six adult women through calls, voicemails, text messages and online posts. He created and shared real and AI-generated nude images of the victims and made threats that included references to their home addresses.

Strahler also created AI-generated sexual images and videos involving children. Authorities found more than 700 images linked to his victims and other animated subjects, while about 2,400 additional images and videos on his phone were flagged for nudity, altered child sexual abuse material or violence.

Strahler was arrested on federal charges in June 2025. His conviction for publishing digital forgeries falls under the Take It Down Act, a federal law passed in 2025 that prohibits the non-consensual publication of intimate images and AI-generated fakes.

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US targets the Xinbi Guarantee Telegram marketplace, seizes $52.8M in crypto

The US government has disrupted Xinbi Guarantee, a Chinese-language marketplace on Telegram that authorities say was involved in billions of dollars in illegal transactions linked to cyber scams, money laundering and human trafficking.

According to US authorities, vendors on Xinbi offered services including creating fake investment websites, laundering money stolen from scam victims and recruiting people to work in scam compounds in Southeast Asia.

Xinbi also acted as a middleman for payments. When a scam group bought a service, Xinbi held the money until the vendor completed the work. The police also seized two cryptocurrency wallets used by Xinbi to collect payments. The wallets contained about $12 million in cryptocurrency. Authorities also moved to freeze 47 other wallets believed to be connected to money laundering and vendors working with scam groups.

In total, more than $52 million in cryptocurrency was seized or restrained as part of the operation.

In addition, the US Treasury Department announced sanctions against Xinbi and two businesses accused of helping support the marketplace.