The complaint filed in New York, reported by the Verge, names Alonzo Knowles as the man who allegedly stole the personal information of 130 celebrities, among their work. He appeared in court Tuesday and is charged with identity theft and copyright infringement.
The complaint alleges Knowles reached out to an unnamed radio host offering to sell upcoming TV scripts, offering proof of their existence with screenshots — the complaint did not list the names of the TV shows in question. Knowles also apparently said he had six episodes of an upcoming season and would get the rest to the host when filming wrapped.
The host then immediately went to the police, and the following the day the host received a text from Knowles (allegedly obtained through hacking). The host replied and connected Knowles to an undercover agent.
Two weeks later, the agent flew Knowles to the U.S., apparently for the reason of purchasing personal information and TV scripts. Knowles was arrested after arriving in the U.S. and accepting the agent’s $80,000 for the “purchase.”
Knowles told the agent that he apparently had personal information of 130 celebrities, along with a sex tape of one victim as well as several unreleased TV scripts. He apparently got into some emails by guessing the owners’ security-question answers. Occasionally, the celebrities had their social security numbers and details on driver’s licenses and passports right in their emails.
Guessing security questions didn’t always work, so occasionally Knowles allegedly found the friends of his targets, compromised their accounts, and then gained access to his target by finding their phone numbers. Then, Knowles would send them a fraudulent text message saying their accounts had been compromised and could be fixed by texting their passwords, which some fell for.
Failing that, Knowles turned to malware to access accounts.
At the end of August 2014, a high-profile celebrity hacking grabbed headlines when nude pictures were leaked online of several women.
