Source: www.govinfosecurity.com – Author:
Cybercrime , Fraud Management & Cybercrime
Crimenetwork Served as a Platform for Illegal Goods and Services Akshaya Asokan (asokan_akshaya) • December 4, 2024
German police arrested the suspected administrator of the largest German-speaking underground markets for illegal goods and services.
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Crimenetwork, online since 2012, was used to sell stolen data, drugs and forged documents. The platform, active across German-speaking countries, had more than 100,000 users and 100 sellers when authorities seized its servers.
The Frankfurt Main Public Prosecutor’s Office and the German Federal Criminal Police Office on Tuesday said the 29-year-old suspected site administrator remains in jail after a first court appearance Monday.
Crimenetwork primarily received proceeds in cryptocurrencies Bitcoin and Monero, with the operators of the platform charging 5% of any sale. Between 2018 and 2024, the platform generated sales worth 1,000 Bitcoin and 20,000 Monero coins, transactions now valued at approximately 90 million and 3 million euros.
As part of the crackdown, police also confiscated cryptocurrencies worth one million euros, as well as expensive vehicles from the suspect. In a video with graphics aping an 8-bit video game, German police suggested they have copies of user and transaction data and messages sent through the site.
The disruption of Crimenetwork is part of a wider operation, called “Operation PowerOFF,” undertaken by international law enforcement agencies to fragment the cybercrime ecosystem and hinder the abilities of the hackers.
As part of Operation PowerOFF, German federal police shut down distributed denial-of-service booter site Dstat.CCCC, and arrested two suspect operators of the platform. They also shut down 47 digital money currency exchange services hosted in Germany.
Germany was also behind the 2022 shuttering of Russian darknet marketplace Hydra, which has been known to offer stolen credit and SIM cards, VPN access, and cryptocurrency laundering services.
Police across Europe have grown more aggressive in shutting down illicit marketplaces, making use of techniques such as tracing blockchain transactions and investigating cloud computing providers to create a wave of disruptions.
Investigators are also better at exploiting the revealing mistakes cybercriminals make when doing the drudge work of maintaining an online marketplace. Cybercriminals tend toward complacency, said Alex Cosoi, chief security strategist at Bitdefender, which helped Finnish authorities earlier this year shut down a darkweb marketplace.
“They imagine if they do a tiny mistake, that police will bust their doors the next day. Which is not the case,” Cosoi told Information Security Media Group in October. “A month later, they do another OpSec mistake, and still, police doesn’t come. And they grow sloppy and make more mistakes” (see: European Police Make Headway Against Darknet Drug Markets).
Original Post URL: https://www.govinfosecurity.com/police-shutter-largest-german-speaking-criminal-marketplace-a-26970
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