A website has posted what appears to
be private financial information about stars, including popular rapper Jay-Z and
his wife Beyonce, and some government officials.
Mel
Gibson, Ashton Kutcher, Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton were among the
11 well-known names whose financial details were released.
The
officials who were targeted included FBI Director Robert Mueller and Los
Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck, whose social security numbers and
credit reports were published.
Pages posted on Vice President Joe
Biden and the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did not include
credit reports, but did reveal addresses and other sensitive
information.
The information posted online exceeds
disclosure details of their finances.
Social security numbers are rarely included in public records any more because they can be used for identity theft.
Los Angeles police said they had launched an investigation into the website, which had an
internet suffix originally assigned to Russia.
The
site did not state how the information had been obtained or why the 11
people targeted were chosen, describing the records only as “secret
files”.
Several of the purported credit reports appear to have been generated last week.
Representatives
for each person targeted either declined to comment on the accuracy of
the information that was posted, or they did not return messages seeking
comment.
Several of the website’s pages featured unflattering
pictures of the celebrities or government officials whose information
was posted.
The site’s page on Beck includes a taunting reference
to former officer Christopher Dorner, who was killed in a shootout
after killing four people over several days last month.
Beck’s page included the message “(hash)YouCantCornerTheDorner” and an image of a woman protesting police corruption.
