"Celebgate" Investigation Leads Back To Chicago

By Jim Bochnowski in News on May 18, 2015 5:45PM

Dimitrios Kambouris for Getty Images Entertainment

Remember the "Celebgate" crisis where hundreds of celebrities, including Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton, had their iCloud accounts hacked and their personal photos leaked onto the Internet for everyone to see? Turns out it had a Chicago connection, because why wouldn't it?

The Sun-Times reports that the FBI raided two homes in Chicago, one in the Clearing neighborhood and one in Brighton Park, in relation to the hacking allegations.

According to recently unsealed court documents, FBI agents filed an affidavit in October of 2014 suspecting that individuals in those homes were using computers to access the personal files of the targeted celebrities for several months. Specifically, agents found that computers at the IP addresses connected to the two Chicago residences were used to access nearly 900 unique iCloud accounts outside of Illinois between May and August of 2014. In total, those accounts were accessed more than 3,800 times by the two IP addresses.

On October 16, 2014, FBI agents raided the two homes, acquiring "several computers, cellphones, a Kindle, floppy disks, hard drives and thumb drives" in the process. However, to date, none of the residents of the homes have been formally charged with any crime and it's an ongoing investigation. The Sun-Times attempted to reach out to residents at the addresses for a comment, but were rebuffed at every turn.