An international coalition of law enforcement agencies has eliminated two hacking forums that had over 10 million users, according to Europol, one of the agencies involved in the operation.
Thursday, the Europol and German police The Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) announced the convulsions of chapped and canceled. The Bka called them “the two largest trading platforms in the world for computer crime on the Internet”, according to a machine translation of the BKA press release.
The confirmation of the operation comes the day after the IT security experts noticed that chased, canceled, as well as two other sites called Sellix and Starkrdp, seemed to have been seized by redirecting the names of domain names to the servers managed by the FBI. The four sites later showed a banner who announced the action of the police, nicknamed “Operation Talent”.
“These sites worked as unique stores and were used not only for discussions on IT crime, but also as markets for illegal goods and IT crime-AS-A service, such as stolen data, malware or hacking tools,” wrote Europol in its printing publication.
An announcement published on Wednesday on Cracked Telegram Channel of Cracked said that the site was seized “with specific reasons not disclosed”.
EUROPOL said that the operation took place between Tuesday and Thursday and brought to two arrests, seven search properties and the seizure of 17 servers, 50 electronic devices and 300,000 euros ($ 313,000) in cash and cryptocurrency.
According to Bka, the coalition of the police seized a dozen reports and domains in ten countries. In addition, twelve people have been identified as involved in the functioning of IT crime platforms. Two German citizens – one who lived in Germany and one who lived in Spain – were arrested; And two others will have to face criminal actions by us, Spanish and Greek authorities. The agencies said they had acquired addresses and -mail, IP addresses and communication stories from the seized forums.
A video published by Europol shows the Spanish authorities, the Policia Nacional (National Police) and the Civil Guard who enter a building, arresting three people, counting money, for the search for an apartment and sitting in front of a computer showing the banner convulsive.
The operation, led by the German authorities, also concerned the law enforcement of Australia, France, Greece, Italy, Romania, Spain, as well as the Department of Justice and the FBI in the United States.
The Australian Federal Police declared in one and -mail that “would provide an update in an appropriate time”. None of the other agencies involved responded to Techcrunch’s comment request.
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Do you have more information on operational talent or other IT crime operations? From a device I do not work, you can contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchie on the signal at +1 917 257 1382 or through Telegram and Keybase @lorenzofb or e-mail. You can also contact Techcrunch via Securedrop.
Operation Talent is the last save in a series of forums of the law against the years against the IT crime forums, such as the notorious violations, which was seized for the first time in 2023, and again in 2024. Later in the 2024, another coordinated coordinated police action – nicknamed Endgame Operation – I targeted several hacking services and malware producers with consequent arrest of four suspicions. At the time, Europol also identified eight fugitives presumably involved in the regime.
