WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has claimed a fresh "megaleak" will target a major US bank "early next year," according to an interview published Monday. Speaking to Forbes magazine, Assange said that he was ready to unleash tens of thousands of documents that could "take down a bank or two."
Comparing the documents to the emails that exposed Enron's dealings amid its collapse, the controversial Australian said an existing "big US bank" was the subject of a pending data dump. Asked about any future leaks, he said: "Yes. We have one related to a bank coming up that's a megaleak. It's not as big a scale as the Iraq material, but it's either tens or hundreds of thousands of documents depending on how you define it."
The interview was conducted in early November, before Sunday's publication of around a quarter of a million leaked United States embassy cables from WikiLeaks that have caused consternation in Washington and capitals around the world. Assange said the bank leak would "give a true and representative insight into how banks behave at the executive level in a way that will stimulate investigations and reforms, I presume.
"Usually when you get leaks at this level, it's about one particular case or one particular violation." Amid the economic crisis a handful of "too big to fail" US banks have come under scrutiny for their dealings, particularly with mortgaged-backed securities that helped fuel the meltdown.