Illustrative image of a hacker.
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NICOLAS ASFOURI / AFP
He offered for sale drugs, false papers or counterfeit money ... The DarkMarket site, hosted on the Darknet, was dismantled and its presumed manager arrested, the Koblenz prosecutor's office in Germany announced on Tuesday.
The alleged operator of “DarkMarket”, a 34-year-old Australian, was arrested this weekend at the German-Danish border, the prosecution said in a statement.
He was remanded in custody.
"More than 20 servers in Moldova and Ukraine" were also seized, adds the prosecution, which carried out its investigations for "months" with the police of the central service of criminal investigations of Oldenburg.
140 million euros in transactions
Police from several countries, such as the United States, Great Britain, Denmark, Moldova and Ukraine, have also been called upon.
The platform was dismantled Monday after the shutdown of the servers, according to the Koblenz prosecutor's office.
For investigators, DarkMarket was "arguably the world's largest Darknet marketplace, with nearly 500,000 users and more than 2,400 sellers."
“In total, at least 320,000 transactions were made there”, settled in Bitcoin and Monero cryptocurrencies.
Their total amount could rise, according to the Koblenz prosecutor's office, to 140 million euros.
This platform was "mainly used for the sale of drugs of all kinds," said the prosecution.
“Counterfeit money, stolen or falsified credit card data, anonymous SIM cards” or even computer viruses were also on sale.
The data entered must now allow, warns the prosecution, to open new avenues of investigations towards resellers, moderators and customers.
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