Ransomware negotiator pleads guilty after leaking victims' insurance details to 'BlackCat' hackers — perp gave attackers a precise picture of exactly how much each target could afford to pay

Angelo Martino, a 41-year-old former ransomware negotiator at the incident response firm DigitalMint, has pleaded guilty to conspiring with the ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware gang to extort five U.S. companies whose data his employer had been hired to protect, the Department of Justice announced on Monday.

Martino, of Land O’Lakes, Florida, is the third and final member of a trio of cybersecurity professionals charged in the scheme; his co-conspirators, Ryan Clifford Goldberg and Kevin Tyler Martin, pleaded guilty in December. Newly unsealed court filings put the total ransom payments across the insider-assisted attacks at more than $75 million, with two of the payments individually exceeding $25 million.

Starting in April 2023, Martino used his position as a negotiator to feed BlackCat operators confidential details about the five victim companies he was representing, according to the DOJ. That information included the victims' cyber insurance policy limits and details about how the negotiations were being perceived internally, giving the attackers a precise picture of exactly how much each target could afford to pay.

Article continues below

According to the unsealed court filings, a nonprofit victim paid a ransom worth nearly $26.8 million in cryptocurrency, a financial services company paid more than $25.6 million, and a hospitality company paid $16.5 million. A retail company paid $6.1 million, and a medical company paid $213,000.

Separately from the insider-assisted attacks, Martino also admitted to joining Goldberg and Martin in directly deploying BlackCat ransomware against additional U.S. victims between April and November 2023. Per an October 2025 indictment, the trio demanded more than $16 million in ransom from those attacks. One confirmed payment from a medical device company netted the group $1.274 million, which they split three ways after paying BlackCat's operators a cut.

Meanwhile, law enforcement has seized more than $10 million from Martino, including $9.2 million in cryptocurrency, two properties, a trailer, a luxury fishing boat, and two motor vehicles, including a 1999 Nissan Skyline, all of which were purchased with illicit proceeds.

"Angelo Martino's clients trusted him to respond to ransomware threats and help thwart and remedy them on behalf of victims," Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva said in the DOJ’s statement. "Instead, he betrayed them and began launching ransomware attacks himself by assisting cybercriminals and harming victims, his own employer, and the cyber incident response industry itself."

Martino is scheduled to be sentenced on July 9th, while Goldberg and Martin are set to be sentenced on April 30th. All three face a maximum of 20 years in prison.

Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds.