Born-again Christian Imoudu Chaba, 37, hacked into a former colleague’s hard-drive (Picture: Cavendish Press/Rex)
A man who threatened to leak details of one million Sky customers after he was sacked by the telecommunications giant has been jailed.
Born-again Christian Imoudu Chaba, 37, hacked into a former colleague’s hard-drive so he could extract confidential details of customers on to his own computer as part of plan to sabotage Sky’s share price.
During the extortion plot, Chaba wrote to the then CEO Jeremy Darroch threatening to leak all the information on the dark web and also report the hack to Sky Box Office and Disney unless he was paid a £45,000 ransom in Bitcoin.
When Sky refused to respond to Chaba’s demands, he targeted individual customers whose details he had hacked and sent them letters demanding cash along with pictures of their homes with sinister photos of “V for Vendetta” or Guy Fawkes masks.
A pensioner who received a ransom letter was ordered to pay £500 to stop his details being disseminated and was warned: ‘At the age of 68 you don’t want Sky to give you all this stress.’
On Thursday, at Minshull Street Crown Court, Manchester, Chaba admitted four charges of blackmail and was jailed for 28 months.
When Sky refused to respond to Chaba’s demands, he targeted individual customers (Pic: Cavendish)
Police swooped on married father-of-two Chaba when detectives investigating an unrelated drugs racket on the dark web spotted a suspicious transaction involving £1,200 worth of Bitcoin into an account linked to him.
His home was raided in March 2020 and officers found copies of the blackmail letters and spreadsheets containing customer details on his computer.
It emerged he had previously worked as a service consultant with Sky TV but had been fired for undisclosed reasons.
Chaba, of Baguley near Altrincham, Greater Manchester, currently runs a bouncy castle and marquee hire firm.
He gave no comment in police interview. Chaba had no previous convictions.
Sentencing Judge Angela Nield told Chaba: ‘You quite clearly had a grudge against Sky. It is quite clear that you felt yourself to be significantly aggrieved by the parting of the ways.
‘The fact Sky did not pay any money was what prompted you to turn to their customers who were much more likely to be frighted by the demands you made as regards using their information.
‘It was not unsophisticated offences. This was not a demand for cash through the post or in brown paper bags rather a demand for Bitcon on an account on the dark web.’
No money was ever paid to Chaba.
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He threatened to leak details of one million Sky customers.