Disclosure context

About payoutsking

PayoutsKing is a recently emerged ransomware group first observed in July 2025, operating with apparent financial motivations and demonstrating broad geographic and sectoral targeting capabilities. With limited public documentation available from major threat intelligence sources, the group's origin and affiliations remain unclear, though their targeting pattern suggests a professional ransomware operation rather than opportunistic attacks. Based on available victim data, PayoutsKing has compromised approximately 60 organizations across multiple sectors, with primary focus on the United States, Germany, United Kingdom, France, and Spain, targeting manufacturing, healthcare, technology, and construction industries alongside various other sectors. The group's attack methodology, encryption techniques, and whether they employ double or triple extortion tactics have not been publicly detailed by established security researchers or government agencies. Given the group's recent emergence in July 2025, there are no widely reported major campaigns or high-profile incidents documented by reputable sources such as CISA, FBI, or Mandiant at this time. PayoutsKing appears to remain active as of current reporting, though comprehensive threat intelligence profiles from established security firms have not yet been published due to the group's recent emergence. The group has been linked to 100 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on July 7, 2025; most recent post May 13, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Timeline of this disclosure

April 30, 2026ESENTIA Energy Systems listed by payoutskingon the group's public leak site

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Energy sector, which has 374 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, ESENTIA Energy Systems is reported in MX, a country with 52 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

How we know this. Darkfield monitors public ransomware leak sites continuously, archiving every new disclosure and the data later released against the victim. Each entry on this page is sourced from the operator's own publication and cross-checked against complementary OSINT feeds (RansomLook, ransomware.live, RansomWatch). We do not collect or host stolen data — only the metadata, timestamps and screenshots needed to make the public disclosure searchable and accountable. Records here are corrected when the original post is edited, retracted, or merged with another disclosure.

Ransomware victim disclosure

← All victims

ESENTIA Energy Systems

Claimed by payoutsking · listed 21 days ago

21d

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

Listed
Apr 30, 2026
Data leaked

At a glance

Group: payoutsking
Status: Data leaked
Country: MX
Sector: Energy
Listed on leak site: Apr 30, 2026

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

ESENTIA Energy Systems is a Mexican energy infrastructure company that develops, owns, and operates the largest private interconnected natural gas system in Mexico, known as the Sistema Wahalajara. It transports natural gas from the Waha Basin in Texas to major industrial centers across Mexico via more than 2,000 km of pipelines. Through its ESENTIA GAS division, with offices in Houston and Mexico City, it also provides integrated gas commercialization, supply, balancing, and price-risk management solutions.

Industry: Natural Gas Transportation & Distribution Infrastructure
Address: Periférico Sur 3433, San Jerónimo Lídice, CP 10200, Ciudad de México, México

Attack summary

Severity: high — ESENTIA operates critical national energy infrastructure (the largest private gas pipeline network in Mexico, supplying a significant share of daily national gas demand). A confirmed data publication against a critical infrastructure operator in the energy sector warrants a high severity rating even without granular data inventory details; potential exposure of operational, financial, and client data for a systemically important pipeline operator poses significant national and commercial risk.

The ransomware group 'payoutsking' claims to have attacked ESENTIA Energy Systems and the disclosure status is listed as data_published, indicating data has been released; the leak post provides no specific detail on encryption or exfiltration methods, nor on the volume or nature of data involved.

high

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Investor financial reports
Quarterly and annual financial statements
Shareholder assembly records
Client service requests
Press communications
Corporate governance documents
Operational asset data

Original description

AI-summarised, not from the leak post

N/A

The leak post

captured from the group's site

PayoutsKing PayoutsKing Blog News About Partnership Welcome PK MAIN TOX: 535F403A2EA2DC71A392E18D7DB77FEF70845C0B7E5B9114CD30D301870304379C3547E324E2 Company Create Website Country Revenue Employees Actions Data Views Status H****l 2026-04-21 t****.com USA $786M ** Exfiltrated 860GB 0 Declared 1d 02:08 F****p 2026-04-14 fl****.com USA $2.7B ** Exfiltrated &amp; Encrypted 1.1TB 0 Declared 1d 02:08 H****o 2026-04-01 has****.com USA $TBD ** Exfiltrated &amp; Encrypted 4.8TB 0 Declared 1d 02:08 A****y 2026-03-31 ape****.com USA $309M ** Exfiltrated &amp; Encrypted 3TB 0 Declared 2d 00:04 NTN Bearing Corporation of America 2026-04-24 ntnamericas.com USA $1.5B 4700 Exfiltrated 596GB 420 Proof 6d 02:09 About company: NTN Bearing is a producer of ball and roller bearings, with plants around the globe and a strong, domestic manufacturing network. Data description: Confidential, Employees&#39; PII (Personally Identifiable Information), Correspondence, Financial, Engineering, Contracts, Agreements, NDA, FULL INFO SunSource 2026-04-20 sun-source.com USA $2B 3500 Exfiltrated 700GB 3401 Disclosed About company: SunSource is a distribution company, providing products, services, and information in…

Sources

Source

Indexed 21 days ago

This page surfaces a public ransomware disclosure indexed by Darkfield. Original posts come from the operator's own leak site; we cross-check against ransomware.live, RansomLook and RansomWatch where applicable. Share this URL freely.