German authorities have introduced the takedown of a bootleg underground market known as Nemesis Market that peddled narcotics, stolen knowledge, and numerous cybercrime companies.
The Federal Legal Police Workplace (aka Bundeskriminalamt or BKA) stated it seized the digital infrastructure related to the darknet service positioned in Germany and Lithuania and confiscated €94,000 ($102,107) in cryptocurrency property.
The operation, performed in collaboration with legislation enforcement businesses from Germany, Lithuania, and the U.S., happened on March 20, 2024, following an intensive investigation that commenced in October 2022.
Based in 2021, Nemesis Market is estimated to have had greater than 150,000 person accounts and 1,100 vendor accounts from everywhere in the world previous to its shutdown. Nearly 20$ of the vendor accounts had been from Germany.
“The vary of products out there on {the marketplace} included narcotics, fraudulently obtained knowledge and items, in addition to a collection of cybercrime companies equivalent to ransomware, phishing, or DDoS attacks,” the BKA said.
The company stated additional investigations towards legal sellers and customers of the platform are presently ongoing. That stated, no arrests have been made.
The event comes a month after one other coordinated legislation enforcement operation took down the LockBit ransomware group, taking management of the outfit’s servers and arresting three associates from Poland and Ukraine. The disruption prompted the gang to relaunch its cyber extortion operation.
In current months, German authorities have additionally taken down Kingdom Market and Crimemarket, each of which boasted of hundreds of customers and provided a wide selection of cash laundering and cybercrime companies.