Sigurdur Thordarson

Sigurdur Thordarson^[a] (born 1992), commonly known as Siggi hakkari ("Siggi the Hacker"),^[1][2] is an Icelandic convicted criminal and FBI informant against Wikileaks.^[3][4][5] He is known for information leaks, numerous cases of fraud and embezzlement, sexual solicitation of minors and adults.^[6][7][8]

In 2010, at the age of 17, he was arrested for stealing and leaking classified information about Icelandic financial companies.^[9] After his arrest, he was introduced to Julian Assange, the editor and founder of WikiLeaks, and worked as a volunteer for the organization for several months between 2010 and 2011.^[10] In 2011, as several charges were brought against him, in an attempt to escape prosecution for his crimes, Thordarson contacted the FBI and offered to become an informant in return for immunity from all prosecution, turning over numerous internal WikiLeaks documents in the process.^[3] WikiLeaks accused him of having embezzled $50,000^[10] from the WikiLeaks online store^[11] to which he pleaded guilty along with other economic crimes against other entities.^[12] He was also accused of impersonating Julian Assange.^[13] He has multiple convictions for sexual offences.

In June 2021, in an interview with Icelandic newspaper Stundin, Thordarson admitted to making numerous false accusations against Julian Assange which formed a core part of the United States indictment against him.^[14] More than a week later, The Washington Post reported that Thordarson’s assertions are not at the root of the US indictment against Assange, but are being used as an indication of the information he told Chelsea Manning.^[15]

Information leaks[]

Thordarson began leaking information about the Icelandic banking system to the media in late 2009. This included information about individuals in the Icelandic banking system, information that showed that individuals were committing illegal acts in relation to banking. One of the leaks by Thordarson concerned a case called "Vafningsmálið."^[16] It involved Bjarni Benediktsson during his time as an MP. Bjarni reported that the case was only a political smear campaign.^[17] The information published by Icelandic news media obtained from Thordarson also showed that one of the country's biggest football stars, Eiður Guðjohnsen, was deeply endebted and almost bankrupt.

After the information was published, Eiður sued the local newspaper DV for publishing this information. DV lost the case in a lower court, but won an appeal to the Supreme Court of Iceland, stating that the information was a matter for the public.^[18][19] Amongst other information that Thordarson admitted to have leaked in an interview with the Rolling Stone magazine^[20][21] was information about local business men Karl Wernersson. He was the owner of the Milestone ehf that was the investment company from which Thordarson stole most of the information. Other names in the documents leaked by Thordarson included information about Birkir Kristinsson, who had recently been convicted of economic crimes while working for Glitnir bank.^[22] Some speculate that information from Thordarson was used as evidence in that case, Thordarson also leaked a classified report about one of the bigger aluminum plants in Iceland. The report stated that the plant was paying 1/4 of what other aluminum plants in the world are paying for electricity.^[23][24]

Other information leaked by Thordarson contained information about other local business men such as Gunnar Gunnarsson,^[25] who also has been reported to assist football star Cristiano Ronaldo in tax affairs.^[26] In 2013, Thordarson argued with Birgitta Jónsdóttir on Twitter over the release of the loanbooks of the Glitnir Bank. Thordarson said she had no involvement, but he claimed that he had given her the files years ago.^[27] In 2009, Thordarson arrived at the offices of the Special Prosecutor, who investigated the bank collapse in Iceland in 2008. Thordarson reportedly gave them all the information he had on Milestone and other local business men, however instead of using some of the information obtained from Thordarson in investigation the investigators decided to sell the information.^{[28][29][30][31]} The case against the two police officers was later dismissed, and it has been reported that the investigators made roughly 30 Million ISK ($250.000) from the documents. In January 2010, Thordarson was arrested on suspicion of stealing classified information, that case never reached the court system and Thordarson denied his involvement until the Rolling Stone interview.^[20] Thordarson was only seventeen years old when he was arrested for leaking the information.^[9]

WikiLeaks connection[]

Kristinn Hrafnsson, spokesman for WikiLeaks, claims Thordarson was a volunteer for the WikiLeaks organization for a few months between 2010 and 2011^[10] where Thordarson took part in moderating a chat room.^[32] Former WikiLeaks employee James Ball has claimed Thordarson reported directly to Assange and served as WikiLeaks' contact with hacker groups.^[5] Kristinn says Thordarson's claim of having been a board member or chief of staff at WikiLeaks are false and that he is a pathological liar.^[32] Ex black hat hacker, Kevin Poulsen, has stated that Thordarson began working for WikiLeaks as early as February 2010 and was fired in November 2011; he acknowledges that Thordarson is "prone to lying".^[3]

Thordarson sold T-shirts on an unauthorised WikiLeaks online store, from which he embezzled $50,000,^[32] the money being paid into his own bank account and the reason why he was sacked.^[3]

David Kushner, who interviewed Thordarson for the Rolling Stone, claimed that Thordarson provided Rolling Stone with over 1 terabyte of data (1,000 gigabytes) about WikiLeaks, and said that either Thordarson was the real deal or this was the biggest and most elaborate lie in the digital age.^[20]

In 2021, in an interview with Icelandic newspaper Stundin, Thordarson admitted that he had made false accusations against Julian Assange, now claiming, for example, that Assange never instructed him to "hack or access" phone recordings and computers of Icelandic politicians. He acknowledged that he dishonestly claimed to be an "official representative of WikiLeaks" and admitted that he stole documentation from Wikileaks staff by copying their hard drives.^[14] Over ten days later, The Washington Post reported that the interview with Thordarson had led such individuals as Edward Snowden, who supports WikiLeaks, to say the case against Assange was weakened, but the Post said the indictment was not based on testimony from Thordarson which was being used as information on Assange's contact with Chelsea Manning.^[15]

FBI connection[]

In August 2011, Thordarson contacted the United States Embassy in Reykjavik and claimed he had information about an ongoing criminal investigation in the United States, and requested a meeting. Thordarson was then summoned to the embassy, where he gave diplomatic staff official documents showing that he was who he claimed to be.^[3] The day after the meeting with the embassy official the FBI sent a private jet with eight federal agents and a prosecutor to question Thordarson. The FBI gave Icelandic authorities notice that they were questioning Thordarson in relation to an co-investigation that Anonymous and LulzSec were about to infiltrate Icelandic government systems. After the authorities found out Thordarson was being questioned about WikiLeaks, the FBI was asked to leave Iceland. The FBI left the country a few days later but took Thordarson with them to Denmark where questioning continued.^[33]

Thordarson was subsequently allowed to return to Iceland. In 2012, he met with the federal agents on multiple occasions, and was flown to Copenhagen where Thordarson was provided a room in a luxury hotel.^[34] Thordarson was allowed to return to Iceland after every meeting. Thordarson met with the FBI again in Washington D.C. and spent a couple of days with them there. The final meeting that Thordarson said took place with the FBI was during a course Thordarson was enrolled in at Aarhus in Denmark, teaching IT Security. Thordarson met with the agents there and handed over several hard drives. Wired reported Thordarson had received $5,000 for his assistance and said he was on the FBI's payroll.^[3][35] In 2013, Thordarson was also summoned to the General Committee of the Icelandic Parliament after days of being discussed in the Parliament. They questioned Thordarson about his involvement in the FBI case.^[36] The then-Minister of the Interior Ögmundur Jónasson said in Parliament that Thordarson was young and the FBI meant him to be a "spy" within the WikiLeaks organization.^[37] At the parliament hearing, Thordarson arrived with two bodyguards.^[38]

"Spy Computer"[]

In January 2011, it was reported in the Icelandic media that a computer had been found within closed sections of the Parliament.^[39] It was alleged that WikiLeaks was suspected of placing the computer inside the Parliament. Bjarni Benediktsson the MP Thordarson leaked information about comments found on the computer.^[40]

On an interview with icelandic media Stundin, on June 2021, Thordarson said Assange had no involvement whatsoever in the phone recordings of the Parliament.^[14]

Thordarson was questioned about his involvement in this case.^[3] Morgunblaðið, Iceland's largest newspaper published on the front page on 31 January 2011 that a local reporter for the paper DV was suspected of obtaining the information from Thordarson. The reporter was said to be under investigation for receiving the information from Thordarson and manipulating Thordarson into leaking the information and placing the computer inside Parliament.^[41][42] The reporter sued the newspaper for libel and won the case. Morgunblaðið withdrew the report and issued an apology to the reporter on 7 December. There was a report in the Icelandic media that stated that specialists were now checking whether parliament phones were spied on by WikiLeaks.^[43][44] Wired published chat logs that indicated such.^[45] This is believed to support the claim that Thordarson is involved with the spy computer somehow.^[46] Birgitta Jónsdóttir issued a statement stating that she had never heard of any recordings.^[47]

The case is still under investigation with no official suspects.^{[48][49][50][51]}

Anonymous and LulzSec[]

During his period at WikiLeaks, it has also been reported that Thordarson ordered attacks on Icelandic governmental infrastructures such as the servers hosting the Ministry's websites www.stjornarradid.is and www.landsnet.is. Those DDoS attacks were successful for a few hours. This was all done after an Icelandic business man that owns an Icelandic data center asked Thordarson to do so. It has also been reported that Thordarson ordered Hector Monsegur (Sabu) and his team to attack Icelandic State Police servers. This all happened during Sabu's time as an FBI informant. It is reported that Thordarson obtained the unpublished version of a report about the surveillance unit at the U.S Embassy in Reykjavik.^[52][53] Media sources have indicated that persons part of Anonymous and LulzSec reported to Thordarson. This issue was covered partially in the book We are Anonymous.^[54] Reports state that Thordarson obtained many leaks through this method that WikiLeaks later published, such as The Kissinger cables and The Syria Files. It is unknown how WikiLeaks or Thordarson obtained the information, though chat logs between Thordarson and Hector Monsegur a.k.a. Sabu have surfaced.^[55][56] Some people also speculate whether the attack on the website of the Central Intelligence Agency was ordered by Thordarson as a test to see whether "Sabu" had really as good skills and people as he claimed, it is believed that communications between "Sabu" and Thordarson escalated after the CIA attack.^{[citation needed]}

Convictions[]

In 2012, Thordarson was questioned about sexual misconduct, accused of deceiving a seventeen year old teenage boy.^[57][2] At the time, Thordarson was 18 years old. Thordarson denied the charges but was found guilty in late 2013 and received 8 months in prison.^[57][2]

In 2012, WikiLeaks filed criminal charges against Thordarson for embezzlement. Thordarson denied the charges and the case was later dismissed. He was later arrested in the summer of 2013 on charges of financial fraud. At that time, the WikiLeaks case was brought back up, and Thordarson was indicted on charges of embezzlement and financial fraud. In 2014, Thordarson was ordered to pay WikiLeaks 7 million ISK (roughly $55,000) as well as being sentenced to prison for 2 years for embezzlement and financial fraud. Thordarson pled guilty to all counts.^[13][58] In those cases Thordarson was ordered to pay the victims 15 million ISK (roughly $115.000),^[13] Thordarson received a two-year prison sentence in those cases.^[12]

In 2012, Thordarson was arrested for allegedly having tried to blackmail a large Icelandic candy factory, but the case was later dismissed.^[59]

In January 2014, Thordarson was again arrested for sex crimes. He was believed to be a potential flight risk as well as being likely to sabotage the investigation against him and therefore placed in solitary confinement.^[60] Thordarson had said he would offer them flight tickets, Land Rovers, and up to a million dollars in exchange for sexual favors.^[61] The victims ranged from the age of 15–20, all male, during which Thordarson was 18–21. A psychiatric evaluation ruled that Thordarson was of sound mind, but that he had an antisocial personality disorder^[61] and was incapable of feeling remorse for his actions.^[14] Thordarson pled guilty to all counts and received 3 years for that.^[62][60][63]

Thordarson was ordered to pay 8.6 million ISK (roughly $66,000) in damages to his victims.^[64][65][61]

In 2014, he was sentenced to pay roughly $236,000 in damages for various economic crimes and frauds, including having swindled fast-food companies, car rentals, electronics shops, and having tricked someone into giving him all his shares in a book publishing company.^[2]

In September 2015, he was sentenced to three years imprisonment for having sex with nine underage boys after confessing to the crime the previous month. The victims were offered payment or some other form of inducement.^[4] A court ordered criminal forensic psychiatric evaluation diagnosed him with antisocial personality disorder.^[61]

Media portrayals[]

The film The Fifth Estate (2013), with Benedict Cumberbatch as Assange, features a character based on Thordarson’s played by Jamie Blackley. Thordarson is mentioned in Domsheitberg's book, during his time with WikiLeaks he reportedly used the handles PenguinX, Singi201 and "Q".^[66]

Notes[]

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