UPDATE: If you’re looking for a new darknet market to shop for, don’t forget to visit HiddenIndex.org a new and fast growing darknet Tor Directory with live updated links for top deep web marketplaces.
Dark Market Seized, admin ARRESTED – DarkMarket, the world’s largest illegal marketplace on the dark web, has been taken offline in an international operation involving Germany, Australia, Denmark, Moldova, Ukraine, the United Kingdom (the National Crime Agency), and the USA (DEA, FBI, and IRS). Europol supported the takedown with specialist operational analysis and coordinated the cross-border collaborative effort of the countries involved.
DarkMarket in figures:
- almost 500 000 users;
- more than 2 400 sellers;
- over 320 000 transactions;
- more than 4 650 bitcoin and 12 800 monero transferred.
At the current rate, this corresponds to a sum of more than €140 million. The vendors on the marketplace mainly traded all kinds of drugs and sold counterfeit money, stolen or counterfeit credit card details, anonymous SIM cards and malware.
The Central Criminal Investigation Department in the German city of Oldenburg arrested an Australian citizen who is the alleged operator of DarkMarket near the German-Danish border over the weekend. The investigation, which was led by the cybercrime unit of the Koblenz Public Prosecutor’s Office, allowed officers to locate and close the marketplace, switch off the servers and seize the criminal infrastructure – more than 20 servers in Moldova and Ukraine supported by the German Federal Criminal Police office (BKA).
The stored data will give investigators new leads to further investigate moderators, sellers, and buyers.
The American FBI, DEA narcotics law enforcement division and IRS tax authority took part in the probe along with their German colleagues.
The investigation also involved police from Australia, Britain, Denmark, Switzerland, Ukraine and Moldova, with Europol playing a ‘coordinating role’.
More info can be found on Europol website – here