Twin brothers hired to help manage sensitive U.S. government systems now face serious federal charges after allegedly wiping dozens of databases within an hour of being fired—while accidentally recording themselves doing it on Microsoft Teams.

Early tech work and prior convictions

Muneeb and Sohaib Akhter, both 34, re‑entered the tech world after serving prison sentences following 2015 guilty pleas in a wire fraud and computer crime scheme.¹ By 2023, Muneeb had joined Washington, DC–based federal IT contractor Opexus, which provided software and services to 45 federal clients, and Sohaib followed a year later.¹

According to prosecutors, Muneeb had already been abusing his access by harvesting roughly 5,400 usernames and passwords from company network data and using custom Python scripts like “marriott_checker.py” to break into victims’ accounts, including DocuSign and airline profiles, sometimes redeeming stored miles for his own travel.¹

Firing and the database deletions

In February 2025, Opexus discovered the brothers’ criminal past and moved to terminate them.² On February 18, two HR employees held a Microsoft Teams meeting with the Akhters to deliver the news. Sohaib began recording the call at 4:48 p.m. Eastern, and HR staff left after a few minutes.²

Critically, Muneeb’s system access was not fully revoked. In the roughly hour that followed, he allegedly deleted 96 databases containing U.S. government information, while also downloading sensitive files, as the brothers discussed the destruction and potential repercussions.¹²

How investigators got the evidence

A key mystery for observers was how investigators obtained a verbatim transcript of the brothers’ private conversations during the deletion spree.² A later court filing revealed the answer: the Teams recording never stopped. The brothers had inadvertently “supersecretly recorded” themselves, providing prosecutors with an unbroken audio record of their actions and discussions after the firing.²

The case is now cited by security experts as a stark illustration of why organizations often cut off digital access before terminated employees learn they’ve lost their jobs—and how basic operational safeguards can fail with costly consequences.¹