Germany arrests suspected admin of country’s largest criminal marketplace

German police mentioned they’ve shut down the servers and arrested one of many directors of the nation’s largest German-speaking on-line market for unlawful items and providers, together with stolen knowledge, medication and cast paperwork.

Police mentioned the operation on Monday seized costly autos and round €1 million price of digital belongings from the alleged operator of the prison buying and selling platform referred to as Crimenetwork.

A 29-year-old suspect is believed to be the technical administrator of the platform, in keeping with an announcement from the German Federal Prison Police Workplace (BKA). He’s additionally suspected of drug trafficking and is at the moment being held in custody.

Crimenetwork has been working since 2012 and primarily focused German-speaking international locations. Earlier than its shutdown, greater than 100,000 customers and over 100 sellers had been registered on the platform.

The criminals used bitcoin and Monero cryptocurrencies to pay for unlawful items and providers. From 2018 to 2024, the platform generated no less than 1,000 bitcoin (almost $95 million) and over 20,000 Monero cash (almost $4 million) in transactions, the police mentioned.

The platform operators acquired a 5% reduce from these transactions, plus a month-to-month subscription charge from sellers, in addition to promoting income.

In response to the investigation, extra arrests may comply with, as police obtained “intensive person and transaction knowledge” in the course of the raids.

Crimenetwork is considered one of a number of unlawful providers dismantled by legislation enforcement the world over over the previous few weeks. Earlier this week, French and Dutch authorities shut down an encrypted messaging service referred to as MATRIX, which was utilized by criminals to commit critical crimes, together with worldwide drug trafficking, arms trafficking, and cash laundering.

Final week, a number of legislation enforcement businesses throughout Europe cracked down on one of many largest unlawful streaming networks and arrested almost a dozen individuals tied to the operation. Earlier in November, the U.S. authorities disrupted a bootleg market referred to as PopeyeTools, which was used to promote stolen bank card numbers and different instruments for cybercrime.

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