Peter Williams, a former U.S. protection contractor boss, was sentenced on Tuesday to seven years in jail for stealing and promoting his former firm’s hacking and surveillance instruments to a Russian agency.
Reporters with Bloomberg and Cyberscoop first reported Williams’ sentencing.
Williams was the final supervisor of Trenchant, a division of the protection contractor L3Harris that sells hacking and surveillance instruments — sometimes generally known as zero-days — to the U.S. authorities and a choose group of its prime allies, generally known as the 5 Eyes, together with Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the UK.
Final 12 months, Williams, 39, an Australian citizen who resides in Washington, D.C., pleaded responsible to promoting seven Trenchant commerce secrets and techniques to a Russian dealer. Whereas prosecutors didn’t identify the corporate on the time, the U.S. Treasury Division confirmed on Tuesday that the dealer is Operation Zero and introduced sanctions in opposition to the corporate.
Operation Zero provides thousands and thousands of {dollars} for particulars of safety vulnerabilities in Android and iPhone gadgets, in addition to messaging apps like Telegram. Operation Zero claims to resell the instruments it acquires completely to the Russian authorities and native corporations.
The U.S. Division of Justice alleged that the hacking instruments Williams bought may have allowed the top buyer to “probably entry thousands and thousands of computer systems and gadgets all over the world.” Williams, who beforehand labored for an Australian spy company and the nation’s army, admitted that he made $1.3 million in crypto from the gross sales between 2022 and 2025.
L3Harris and Williams’ legal professionals didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
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June 9, 2026
