The U.S. Secret Service is investigating a bizarre case involving claims of an alleged theft of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's tax records and a $1 million ransom fee in exchange for keeping them under wraps.

A Secret Service spokesperson confirmed reports that the agency is investigating the case, but declined to comment further. An unnamed person or group recently posted on Pastebin that they had accessed the Franklin, Tenn.-based offices of Price Waterhouse Cooper and copied onto USB sticks Romney's 1040 tax return documents for years prior to 2010 and sent copies to local Democratic and Republican party offices. "The group will release all available files to the public on the 28 of September, 2012," an online post says.

The alleged attackers say they got inside the PWC offices on Aug. 25, duping a man in the building to provide them access. "Once on the 3rd floor, the team moved down the stairs to the 2nd floor and setup shop in an empty office room. During the night, suite 260 was entered, and all available 1040 tax forms for Romney were copied. A package was sent to the PWC on suite 260 with a flash drive containing a copy of the 1040 files, plus copies were sent to the Democratic office in the county and copies were sent to the GOP office in the county at the beginning of the week also containing flash drives with copies of Romney's tax returns before 2010. A scanned signature image for Mitt Romney from the 1040 forms were scanned and included with the packages, taken from earlier 1040 tax forms gathered and stored on the flash drives," the post says.