Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Cybercrime

European Arrests Target Darknet Selling Drugs, Arms, Fake IDs

Police in seven European countries raided operators of “darknet” online platforms trading in weapons, illegal drugs, fake IDs and counterfeit money, arresting nine suspects, German authorities said Monday.

Police in seven European countries raided operators of “darknet” online platforms trading in weapons, illegal drugs, fake IDs and counterfeit money, arresting nine suspects, German authorities said Monday.

The operation last week targeted 69 homes and businesses across Germany and in Bosnia, Switzerland, France, the Netherlands, Lithuania and Russia, said German federal police and Frankfurt prosecutors.

The suspects allegedly used so-called darknet systems — or encrypted peer-to-peer networks — to sell heroin, cocaine, cannabis, amphetamines, ecstasy as well as forged German, Dutch and Italian identity documents, they said in a statement.

The German security services called the raids and arrests “a major blow against the German-speaking underground economy and further proof that there is no complete anonymity on the Internet, including in the so-called darknet”.

Police in the raids last Tuesday and Wednesday confiscated servers in France, the Netherlands, Lithuania and Russia as well as numerous PCs and storage media, a firearm, illegal drugs and 150,000 euros ($163,000) in cash and assets.

The gangs had also traded in stolen credit card and online banking data, and hacked access names and passwords to various Internet services.

They further offered criminal services, such as the infection of computers with malicious software, police said.

The suspected technical administrator of three networks was a 27-year-old Bosnian national, who was arrested by the local police organised crime squad and the High Tech Crime Department Republika Srpska.

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

German police arrested a 22-year-old German national who ran a trading platform that sold illegal drugs, and Syrian brothers aged 19 and 28 after finding 36 kilogrammes (79 pounds) of amphetamine, 1.5 kg of cocaine, 2 kg of hashish and 2.3 kg of ecstasy pills in their apartment.

They also arrested two German men aged 29 and 21. The younger suspect was the alleged administrator of two networks and also offered an illegal streaming platform for pirated movies and sports shows.

The statement did not specify who the other three arrested suspects were.

Related: Global Law Enforcement Strikes Deep Into ‘Dark Web’

Written By

AFP 2023

Click to comment

Trending

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts.

Join the session as we discuss the challenges and best practices for cybersecurity leaders managing cloud identities.

Register

SecurityWeek’s Ransomware Resilience and Recovery Summit helps businesses to plan, prepare, and recover from a ransomware incident.

Register

Expert Insights

Related Content

Cybercrime

The changing nature of what we still generally call ransomware will continue through 2023, driven by three primary conditions.

Cybercrime

A recently disclosed vBulletin vulnerability, which had a zero-day status for roughly two days last week, was exploited in a hacker attack targeting the...

Cybercrime

As it evolves, web3 will contain and increase all the security issues of web2 – and perhaps add a few more.

Cybercrime

Luxury retailer Neiman Marcus Group informed some customers last week that their online accounts had been breached by hackers.

Cybercrime

Zendesk is informing customers about a data breach that started with an SMS phishing campaign targeting the company’s employees.

Cybercrime

Patch Tuesday: Microsoft calls attention to a series of zero-day remote code execution attacks hitting its Office productivity suite.

Artificial Intelligence

The release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022 has demonstrated the potential of AI for both good and bad.

Cybercrime

Satellite TV giant Dish Network confirmed that a recent outage was the result of a cyberattack and admitted that data was stolen.