PANews reported on July 6 that IT Home quoted Bloomberg as saying that a statement from DigitalMint said that the US Department of Justice is investigating a case involving its former employee. The ransomware negotiation expert was allegedly found to have reached a secret agreement with hackers and then collected commissions (a cut) from the ransom, which has seriously harmed the interests of customers. The company stated that the employee involved "has been immediately fired" and his behavior was an individual case. The focus of the US Department of Justice's investigation is whether the negotiation expert violated federal laws, including conspiracy, wire fraud and money laundering. If convicted, the person will face severe penalties.

DititalMint, a Chicago-based incident response and digital asset services company, specializes in ransomware negotiation and cryptocurrency payment services, helping clients exchange decryption keys and prevent stolen data from being leaked. It claims to have handled more than 2,000 ransomware incidents since 2017.