It has been reported that while doing so, Sullivan used the bug bounty program to move a hush-money payment of $100,000 in Bitcoin.
In the year 2016, around 600,000 uber drivers’ license numbers and personal information of almost 57 million users were stolen by hackers.
On August 20, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) declared that it has charged Sullivan with obstruction of justice and misprision of a felony.
While accusing Sullivan, the DoJ stated that he deliberately misled the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in connection to the breach and hush money payment of $100,000 in BTC.
Regarding this matter, US Attorney David Anderson said,
“Silicon Valley is not the Wild West. We will not tolerate illegal hush-money payments.”
According to the agency, even though, Sullivan knew that the hackers were anonymous, still, he tried to hide the involvement of the company in the breach. He asked the hackers to sign a non-disclosure agreement with him which asserted that the scammers did not acquire any personal information from Uber.
However, it was all lie, the hackers did obtain the personal information of Uber users.
The agency in its announcement has stated that after the time of the investigation into the matter was over, the authorities got its hands on two of the individuals, who were involved in this illegal activity.
At that time also, despite reporting against hackers, Sullivan asked for them to sign NDA.
Recently, Sullivan’s spokesperson BradforWilliams has claimed that ‘there is no merit to the charges.’
The two of the hackers, who had been charged guilty for managing a wire fraud in October, are presently waiting for their sentence from the court.