A 19-year-old staff member of DOGE, known by his online alias “Big Balls,” has been found to have a questionable past. Reports have emerged that this individual, whose real name is Edward Coristine and whose grandfather was allegedly a KGB spy, provided technical support for a cybercrime ring before joining the team in Washington.

According to Reuters, Coristine operated a company called DiamondCDN in 2022, during his high school years. Although the DiamondCDN website is no longer active, an archived version can be found on the Internet Archive. The company claimed to offer protection against Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, boasting a “near instant reaction” to such incidents.

Wired and Krebs on Security had previously investigated Coristine’s connection to DiamondCDN, but Reuters has provided additional details. One of DiamondCDN’s clients was a cybercrime group known as EGodly. On Telegram, EGodly members discussed their involvement in cryptocurrency theft, phone number hijacking, and doxxing an FBI agent, even sharing audio recordings of prank calls made to the agent.

In a Telegram post, EGodly expressed gratitude to DiamondCDN for its services, stating, “We extend our gratitude to our valued partners DiamondCDN for generously providing us with their amazing DDoS protection and caching systems, which allow us to securely host and safeguard our website,” as reported by Reuters.

Coristine has been linked to “The Com,” a decentralized digital youth movement that organizes on Discord and Telegram, by Krebs on Security. The Com is not a single group but rather a cultural movement characterized by its disorganized and decentralized nature.

While Reuters did not explicitly connect EGodly and DiamondCDN to The Com, their activities align with previous reports on the movement’s operations. EGodly allegedly posted a video of someone driving by an FBI agent’s house, shouting “EGodly says you’re a bitch” out of the window. In the context of The Com, participants often commit digital crimes and then brag about them on Discord and Telegram groups, frequently engaging in doxxing and making obscene phone calls.

Krebs on Security and Wired have previously written about DiamondCDN’s connection to the online criminal underground. At the age of 16, Coristine founded Tesla.Sexy LLC, which controls numerous web domains, including some registered in Russia. The connections between Coristine and known criminal gangs are complex and multifaceted, with the Reuters story shedding light on the latest developments.

Violence associated with The Com is not limited to verbal and digital harassment. According to 404 Media, members of The Com have been known to film themselves attacking the homes of rivals, sometimes throwing bricks through windows or even shooting at buildings with handguns.

To clarify, Edward “Big Balls” Coristine has not been accused of participating in street violence. However, he has numerous connections to the culture, communities, and companies involved in digital crime and street violence.

Last month, Elon Musk expressed his support for Coristine in a post on X, stating, “Big Balls is awesome 😎.”