Former employees of Opexus, a company that provides services to US federal agencies, are accused of deleting 96 government databases. The incident was committed in retaliation for being fired.
Twin brothers Muneeb and Sohaib Akhter, 34, pleaded guilty in court. They were arrested in December 2025. Although the company was not named in the court documents, American media wrote that the conversation was about Opexus, an IT contractor that works with federal agencies.
According to the report, the brothers were fired after two years of employment during a meeting on the Microsoft Teams platform on February 18, 2025. The company learned that they had been sentenced to prison for hacking into US State Department systems in 2017. Later, it was revealed that they were involved in various petty theft cases, including the embezzlement of airline bonus miles.
Immediately after their dismissal, the Akhter brothers began deleting customer databases while they still had access to the system. The process took about an hour. They then consulted with an artificial intelligence assistant to discuss their steps to cover their tracks.
According to Ars Technica, the brothers forgot to end the Microsoft Teams call after the management left the meeting. As a result, all conversations were recorded, and the transcripts stored in the company's system were presented as key evidence in a trial in May 2026.
Muneeb Akhter faces up to 45 years in prison for using his account. Sohaib Akhter is charged with being an accessory to a crime and faces up to 21 years in prison.
