Japanese data brokers have connected to the global crime organization, which is how they got hacking tools developed by the NSA. In this sense, their job was totally a data broker and the global criminals should know its fact beforehand. This implies they auctioned the tools but have never thought it should be actually sold out. Their intention was to show up themselves.
The issue is how they can monetize their show-up. There is one possibility that they have already known globally as the Japanese data broker and they can get a contact from potential buyers directly in another way. This possibility holds true to the equation group that they might get a direct demand from the third party to acquire their tools in hand.
There is another main possibility that they just showed off their capability. At this time moment, it is still unclear how they obtained these tools, and at the same time, their identity had been unknown for some time, hence many governments just escalated their anxiety. If they maintained their anonymity, the US government would have misperceived they would be quite skillful criminals, critical to the national security.
Having said that, the truth is that “shadow brokers” were just hired to leak the hacking tools as an agent of the foreign counterpart who perfectly understood the Japanese data broker consisted the crime infrastructure and also conducted a ransomware to take a ransom without notice. In the end, their crime was an extension of these capabilities.
FFF 