French authorities have arrested and charged a 15-year-old boy suspected of hacking the country’s National Agency for Secure Documents (ANTS) and attempting to sell millions of citizens’ personal records on the dark web.
The teenager, whose identity has not been publicly released due to his age, was detained on April 25. He is believed to have operated under the online alias ’breach3d.’ Paris prosecutors announced a formal investigation on April 30, and the minor has been formally charged and placed under judicial supervision.
ANTS manages applications and data for French national identity cards, passports, driver’s licenses, and residence permits. In mid-April, hackers accessed the agency’s systems and illegally retrieved 12–19 million records, including names, email addresses, dates of birth, usernames, and, in some cases, addresses and phone numbers.
The perpetrator allegedly advertised the dataset for sale on cybercriminal forums, prompting a rapid investigation that led to the teen’s arrest.
Under French law, the offenses of fraudulent access to and extraction of data from a state system carry potential penalties of up to seven years in prison and a €300,000 fine. The investigation is ongoing.
