The former boss of a US maker of hacking and surveillance tools stole and sold technology capable of hacking millions of computers and people around the world, US prosecutors have confirmed for the first time.
In October, Australian national Peter Williams, 39, pleaded guilty to selling eight hacking tools he stole from his employer Trenchant, a division of US defense contractor L3Harris, which sells the surveillance tools to the US government and its closest allies. Williams admitted to making more than $1.3 million in crypto sales between 2022 and 2025, according to the Justice Department.
In a court document Released Tuesday, federal prosecutors said Williams’ actions “directly harmed” the U.S. intelligence community by selling the hacking tools to a Russian company that counts the Russian government among its clients.
While Williams was known to have sold Trenchant exploits — software that exploits flaws in other software typically to gain access to someone’s computer or device — prosecutors now say those eight tools could have been used to indiscriminately enable government surveillance, cybercrime and ransomware attacks around the world.
This latest revelation comes ahead of Williams’ expected sentencing on February 24 in federal court in Washington, DC. In the sentencing memo, which prosecutors are using to persuade the court to impose the maximum sentence, the Justice Department said the exploits Williams was selling would allow the Russian broker and his clients to “potentially access millions of computers and devices around the world, including in the United States.”
Prosecutors asked the judge to sentence Williams to nine years in prison, with three years of supervised release, mandatory restitution of $35 million and a maximum fine of $250,000. Williams is expected to be deported to Australia after serving his sentence, the memo said.
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In response to the prosecutors’ brief, Williams submitted a letter to the judge explaining his decisions, saying he regretted his actions.
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“I made choices that directly violate the values I believed in and the trust placed in me by my family, colleagues and friends,” Williams wrote. “I now recognize that I allowed myself to ignore my responsibilities and training and failed to seek help or guidance when I knew I was headed in the wrong direction.”
Williams’ attorney, John P. Rowley, wrote response to prosecutors that none of the stolen hacking tools were classified and there was no evidence that Williams knew the tools would end up in the hands of the governments of Russia or any other country. His lawyer said Williams did not intend to harm the US and his native Australia, “although he now recognizes that was a consequence of his actions”.
When reached by TechCrunch, Justice Department spokesman Pierson Furnish declined to comment. Rowley, Williams’ attorney, did not respond to a request for comment.
From scapegoating to condemnation
In mid-2025, several sources with knowledge of the aggressive cybersecurity industry told TechCrunch that someone working for Trenchant had stolen sensitive hacking tools and sold them to a United States adversary.
A former Trenchant employee has come forward, telling TechCrunch that he was unfairly fired after the company accused him of stealing and leaking details about some of the company’s exploits.
But it wasn’t until October that prosecutors formally accused Williams, who also goes by “Doogie” and was Trenchant’s general manager at the time, of being behind the theft of the company’s hacking tools. The US government accused Williams of selling the exploits to a Russian broker in exchange for crypto.
Prosecutors said FBI agents were in contact with Williams from late 2024 until the time of his arrest in mid-2025, when he was overseeing Trenchant’s internal investigation into the theft of company secrets.
Despite the ongoing investigation, Williams continued to sell the company’s secrets and assets — technically known as zero-days since the affected software maker didn’t have time to patch them — even when he knew the FBI was investigating the theft and sale of Trenchant’s hacking tools.
Williams also oversaw the firing of the Trenchant employee accused of leaking the tools, sources told TechCrunch, and prosecutors have since confirmed. The fired employee told TechCrunch that he believed he was being scapegoated for someone else at the company. Weeks after he was fired, the employee received a notification from Apple that he had been targeted with government spyware, which has yet to be explained.
“[Williams] stood idly by while another company employee was charged effectively with the defendant’s own conduct,” prosecutors wrote in their brief.
A Trenchant spokesman did not respond to a request for comment about Williams or her investigation.
On August 6, FBI agents obtained and executed search warrants for Williams’ home and then confronted Williams with evidence showing crypto payment receipts, the alias he used to interact with the Russian broker who bought the stolen trade secrets, and his contract with the broker.
The Russian broker is likely Operation Zero, which is offering up to $20 million for tools to hack into Android and iPhone devices. The company he says explicitly only sells to the Russian government and local organizations.
Operation Zero did not return a request for comment.
Prosecutors called the broker, whom he did not name, “one of the most nefarious exploitation brokers in the world” and said Williams chose him because, “by his own admission, he knew they were paying the most.”
“Williams’ desire for more money, a better lifestyle, a bigger house and more jewelry and trinkets simply could not be satisfied, and he chose to risk it all to betray his company, his colleagues, and the United States and its allies to satisfy that desire,” prosecutors wrote.
