A hacker or hacking group going by the name “TheDarkOverlord” is demanding to be paid bitcoin for access to documents that are allegedly linked to litigation for the 9/11 terror attacks.

The documents are said to have come from hacks of insurance companies Hiscox Syndicates and Lloyds of London as well as real estate developer Silverstein Properties.

In a post on Pastebin Dec. 31, the hacker hints that the documents may prove evidence of 9/11 conspiracy theories. The data is claimed to include “hundreds of gigabytes of litigation related documents,” including emails, voicemails, retainer agreements, nondisclosure agreements and communications between government bodies and Fortune 500 companies.

Exactly what is in the files was not disclosed, but the validity of the hack has been confirmed. A spokesperson for Hiscox Group told Motherboard that it had been hacked and files relating to 9/11 were stolen.

“This story isn’t about insurance litigation so much as it’s about highly sensitive SCI (special compartment information) and SSI (sensitive security information) that details security procedures, defense operations, law enforcement investigations, evidence materials, and more that was never publicly released due to its sensitive nature,” the post said.

A separate document on Pastebin claimed that the hacker is a 45-year-old Scottish male called Craig Bell.

Be it Bell or someone else, the same hacker or hacking group was also behind a hack of Netflix Inc. in 2017. A suspect was arrested in Serbia in last May, but clearly the hacker or group of hackers is still active.

Confusing the matter even further is that TheDarkOverlord is having a tiered document sale. Prices for access range from as little as $250 in bitcoin for tier one documents to $2 million for content from the so-called “tier five.”

Modesty isn’t the hacker’s strong point either.

“Edward Snowden leaks were quite impressive and caught the world’s attention due to the highly sensitive nature of the materials and the global impact,” the rambling post on Pastebin reads. “What we’re about to announce and leak will top Edward Snowden’s finest work, both in volume and in impact.”

If the story wasn’t weird enough already, the hacker or hackers are reported to have held a question-and-answer group on 4chan claiming to have evidence proving that UFOs are real.

Whether bitcoin will be paid or the documents released is not clear yet.

Photo: Michael Foran/Wikimedia Commons