In Massachusetts (Northeastern USA) on Thursday, a US Air Force officer was arrested, suspected of being the author of the recent leaks of classified information to the Pentagon, Reuters reports. His name is Jack Teixeira, he is 21 years old.

A suspect named Jack Teixeira runs the online group Thug Shaker Central, where about 20 to 30 people express their passion for guns, video games and post-racist memes.

UPDATE: FBI announces arrest in Massachusetts

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced on Thursday that it “has made an arrest and continues to conduct authorized law enforcement activities at a residence in North Dayton, Massachusetts”, in the context of which the media reported that the suspect had been arrested. detected in case of leakage of classified information.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland later confirmed Jack Teixeira’s arrest in the case in a press release.

• According to the US Attorney’s Office, Jack Teixeira’s first court appearance is scheduled for Friday in Boston. The exact time of the performance will be announced tomorrow.

First published on the group’s website, the classified documents, which appeared last weekend and on social networks Twitter and Telegram, give an image of information gathering activities carried out by the United States at the global level, Agerpres notes. But the revelations about the Russian-Ukrainian war and Kyiv’s proposed military aid to the West stand out. Dated between February and March, these documents demonstrate the shortcomings of both the Russian and Ukrainian armies.

• Secret US and NATO plans for a Ukrainian counteroffensive have been made public or stolen. The Pentagon is investigating after classified documents were leaked on social media

What is known today about the alleged author of Pentagon Leaks

The man who leaked classified documents from the US intelligence services, which led to the initiation of a national security investigation, is a young gun enthusiast in his 20s who worked at a military base where he had access to such weapons, the Washington Post wrote on Wednesday, citing members online discussion group also used by the alleged author. He shared the top-secret documents with a group of online friends, many of them teenagers, that he made during the pandemic-imposed isolation.

United by a shared passion for guns, a group of about 25 people — mostly men and boys — formed an exclusive, invitation-only club in 2020 on Discord, an online platform popular with video game enthusiasts. Last year, the group didn’t pay much attention when someone they call “OG” posted a message full of acronyms and weird jargon.

The words were unknown and few people read the lengthy report, explained one member the Washington Post spoke to, but who worshiped the “OG.”

“He is strong, he is armed”

The young man was known by the nickname OG, which is slang for Original Gangster or Old School Traditionalist. One source for The Washington Post put him between 20 and 25 years old, and according to the same source, he was valued by members of the group.

• “He is physically well prepared. That’s strong. He is armed. He is trained. About what you can expect from a crazy movie,” said a member of the platform, who spoke on condition of anonymity, with the permission of his mother, given that he is not yet 18 years old, according to the American publication.

Shelter during a pandemic

A young member of the Washington Post group carefully read the message of O.G. and hundreds of other messages that he says have been coming in regularly for months. He recalled that they were almost verbatim transcripts of classified intelligence documents that the OG said he brought home from his workplace at a “military base,” and the Washington Post’s interlocutor declined to identify her, News.ro reported.

The OG claimed he spent at least part of the day in a secure room where cell phones and other electronic devices are prohibited because they could be used to intercept classified information hosted on government computer networks or documents being printed.

According to a Washington Post source, the OG made notes on some of the documents shown, translating obscure intelligence language for the uninitiated, such as explaining that “NOFORN” meant that the information in the document was so confidential that it should not be shared with the public to foreigners.

OG told the group that he spent hours working on secret documents to share with friends on a Discord server he controlled.

This online hangout has been a refuge during the pandemic, especially for teenage gamers who are stuck at home, cut off from real friends. The participants exchanged memes, jokes and conducted various dialogues. They watched movies together, joked and prayed, because they were all believers. But OG also lectured them on international affairs and secret government operations.

“He knew what he was doing”

He wanted to “keep us in the loop,” says a young member of the group interviewed by the Washington Post, who explained that OG believed his inside information would protect others from the turbulent world around them.

“He is a smart person. Of course he knew what he was doing when he published these documents. These were not accidental leaks of any kind,” said a source interviewed by the Washington Post, as quoted by News.ro.

In these initial posts, OG gave his colleagues little insight into the currents of mystery. When manually visualizing hundreds of secret files proved too tedious, he began publishing hundreds of photos of the documents themselves. That’s how the Discord server became an amazing repository of secrets that have steadily leaked out over the past week, undermining US foreign policy and annoying America’s allies.

A second member of the group, who has read many of the classified documents shared by OG and who also spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed the story about the young man the Washington Post spoke to.

Both members said they know OG’s real name and the state he lives and works in, but declined to share that information while the FBI investigates the source of the leak. The investigation is in its early stages, and the Pentagon has launched its own internal investigation led by a senior official.

In a statement released Wednesday, the Discord platform announced that it is cooperating with law enforcement.

We recall that last week the Department of Justice opened a formal criminal investigation after the case was transferred to the Pentagon, which is assessing the damage caused by what could turn out to be the worst leak of classified US information in years. US national security agencies and the Department of Justice are investigating the leaks to assess the damage to national security and relations with US allies and other countries, including Ukraine.

The allegedly classified information was first leaked in January on a Discord server

Earlier this week, The Guardian reported that highly classified Pentagon information was first leaked in player chats hosted by Discord amid the Ukraine war controversy.

The existence of such information was exposed when documents began to circulate on public social media last week indicating approximate casualties during the fighting in Bakhmut.

Two versions of these documents, one of which was digitally altered to understate the number of Russian casualties and overestimate the number of Ukrainian casualties, began to circulate among observers of the war. One of the documents with the correct numbers came from a leak on the 4chan forum that spawned the far-right alt-right movement.

At the same time, a second package of documents, including a redacted image, began to circulate on pro-Russian Telegram channels.

However, none of them were original sources. Before appearing on the great public Internet, the documents were shared in Discord chats, a chat program for video game enthusiasts. On a server called “Minecraft Earth Map”, 10 documents were published back on March 4, a month before they appeared on 4chan.

“After a short heated discussion with another person on the server about Minecraft Maps and the war in Ukraine, one of the Discord users responded, “Look, some documents are leaking,” adding 10 documents about Ukraine, some of which were labeled “top secret.” ” said Arik Toler, an analyst at Bellingcat Research Group.

That user, in turn, found them on another Discord server run by fans of Filipino YouTuber WowMao, where 30 documents were posted three days ago, along with “dozens” of other unverified documents about Ukraine. Even that wasn’t the original source, though: a third Discord server, called “Thug Shaker Central” among others, may have been where the documents were originally posted back in mid-January.

“Posts and channel listings show that the server’s users were interested in video games, music, Orthodox Christianity and fandom ((fan culture with shared interests) for the popular YouTuber Oxide,” Toler said, referring to the military-themed YouTube channel.

“This server was not particularly geopolitical in nature, although its users took a fairly conservative stance on several issues. Racial slurs and racist memes were widely shared,” Bellingcat members reported.

The car combat simulator War Thunder is known for a large number of leaks

While the scale and sensitivity of the leaks are significant, this isn’t the first time intelligence services have been hacked following a discussion between gamers. One game in particular, the combat simulator War Thunder, has become infamous for the large number of leaks associated with it, The Guardian notes.

The game, which has a reputation for accuracy, has 70 million users worldwide, which has led to regular disputes over balance and accuracy – resulting in users committing security breaches on at least 10 separate occasions since 2020, often by publishing classified documents about active weapons capabilities in trying to justify the need to improve the digital version of the car.

In October 2021, for example, secret design details were released for the French Leclerc tank, which wins the turret rotation speed argument.

In July 2021, a user who identified himself as a British Army tank commander published documents about the vehicle’s armor structure to win the argument.

In January of this year, four different users published design documents for at least five different fighters.

The game became such a mirror of intelligence failures that the military company Raytheon was forced to deny reports that it had been specifically asked about War Thunder as part of a security review process, The Guardian reports.