An international coalition of law enforcement organizations has shot two hacking forums which had more than 10 million users, according to Europol, one of the agencies involved in the operation.
Thursday, Europol and Germany police The Bundeskriminalam (BKA) announced the crises cracked and zero. The BKA called them “the two largest trading platforms in the world for cybercrime on the Internet”, according to an automatic translation of the BKA press release.
Confirmation of the operation one day comes after cybersecurity experts REMARK This deceased cracking, as well as two other sites called Sellix and StarkRDP, seemed to have been seized by redirecting the names of the domains to servers managed by the FBI. The four sites then posted a banner announcing the measure of the police, nicknamed “Talent Operation”.
“These sites worked as a single window stores and were used not only for discussions on cybercrime, but also as markets for illegal goods and cybercrime as a service, such as stolen data, malicious software or hacking tools, ”wrote Europol In its press release.
A Announcement published Wednesday On the official Télégram channel of Cracked, said that the site had been seized “with specific unknown reasons”.
Europol said that the operation had taken place between Tuesday and Thursday and resulted in two arrests, seven properties sought and the seizure of 17 servers, 50 electronic devices and 300,000 euros ($ 313,000) in cash and cryptocurrency.
According to the BKA, the coalition of the police has seized a dozen accounts and domains in ten countries. In addition, twelve people have been identified as being involved in the exploitation of cybercrime platforms. Two German citizens – the one who lived in Germany and the one who lived in Spain – was arrested; And two others will face prosecution by us, the Spanish and Greek authorities. The agencies said they have acquired email addresses, IP addresses and communication stories of the seized forums.
A video Published by Europol shows that the Spanish authorities, the police nacional (national police) and the civilian Guardia entering a building, arresting three people, counting money, searching an apartment, as well as in front of a computer that displayed the seizure banner .
The operation, led by the German authorities, also involved agencies for the Australian, France, Greece, Italy, Romania, Spain, as well as the Ministry of Justice and FBI in the United States.
Australian federal police said in an email that it would provide an update at a suitable time “. None of the other agencies involved responded to the request for comments from Techcrunch.
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Do you have more information on the talent operation or other operations against cybercrime? From a non-work device, you can contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai safely on the signal at +1 917 257 1382, or via Telegram and Keybase @lorenzofb, or e-mail. You can also contact Techcrunch via Secure.
The Talent operation is the last salvo of a series of violations of the law on cybercrime forums, such as the notorious breachforums, which was Seized for the first time In 2023, And again in 2024. Later in 2024, another action by the coordinated international police – Operation nicknamed Endgame Game – Targets several hacking services and manufacturers of malicious software, which led to the arrest of four suspects. At the time, Europol also identified eight fugitives who were reportedly involved in the program.
