Mitt Romney’s tax returns are reportedly in the hands of a team of hackers who plan on releasing them publicly on Sept. 28 unless a $1 million ransom is paid in Bitcoins.
The group allegedly obtained the files from PricewaterhouseCooper’s Tennessee office on Aug. 25, in what was described on the groups PasteBin post:
Romney’s 1040 tax returns were taken from the PWC office 8/25/2012 by gaining access to the third floor via a gentleman working on the 3rd floor of the building. Once on the 3rd floor, the team moved down the stairs to the 2nd floor and setup shop in an empty office room. During the night, suite 260 was entered, and all available 1040 tax forms for Romney were copied. A package was sent to the PWC on suite 260 with a flash drive containing a copy of the 1040 files, plus copies were sent to the Democratic office in the county and copies were sent to the GOP office in the county at the beginning of the week also containing flash drives with copies of Romney’s tax returns before 2010. A scanned signature image for Mitt Romney from the 1040 forms were scanned and included with the packages, taken from earlier 1040 tax forms gathered and stored on the flash drives.
A recent PasteBin document from the group stated the following:
“The keys to unlock the data will be purged and whatever is inside the documents will remain a secret forever. Failure to do this before September 28, the entire world will be allowed to view the documents with a publicly released key to unlock everything. And the same time, the other interested parties will be allowed to compete with you.”
From what I have read Mitt Romney is not concerned with the threat he says he pays his taxes legally and fully. I don’t believe he has intentions of taking action on the threat. Again this what I have read only time will tell as Sept. 28 comes closer.