Thursday the FBI he arrested the person suspected of having published dozens of confidential documents online from the US Department of Defense: his name is Jack Teixeira, he is 21 years old and works for the intelligence division of the Massachusetts Air Force. Based on some interviews and the analysis of various images shared on social networks, in the afternoon the New York Times he speculated that Teixeira was the admin of the group on the Discord messaging app where the documents first appeared, and leaked her name first.
The FBI, which had not identified any suspects, arrested Teixeira after searching the house where he lives with his mother in Massachusetts. Two law enforcement officials also cited by the New York Times they had confirmed that they wanted to talk to him about the release of the documents, claiming that he might have useful information for the ongoing investigation.
The investigations into the dissemination of the documents had immediately focused on the first site where they had appeared, Discord, a messaging app that until recently was very popular among people who are passionate about video games, now also widespread in other contexts. The documents that have been talked about the most are related to the war in Ukraine, but there are others that concern the situation in the South China Sea and the activities of a Houthi rebel leader in Yemen. It is believed that they had been put online in recent months, and in recent weeks they had ended up on other platforms, including Telegram, 4chan and Twitter.
Il New York Times he had come to identify Teixeira as the administrator of the group by analyzing the photos and videos shared by his family on social networks and finding matches with some details that appeared in the photos taken of the confidential documents. The group was called “Thug Shaker Central”, it included 20 or 30 people, mostly young men and teenagers, who talked about guns and video games among other things. Through interviews and documents the Washington Post he himself had come to the conclusion that the person suspected of leaking the documents was a gun enthusiast who worked at a military base and ran a group on Discord.
At the moment there is no certainty that the confidential documents were uploaded for the first time to that online group, and the investigations by the US authorities are only in the early stages. At a press conference, US Attorney General Merrick Garland said Teixeira was suspected of illegally leaking “confidential defense information” and would face formal charges in a state federal court in the next few hours.
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