(The Hague) The European Police Board on Wednesday announced the shutdown of one of the world’s largest hacker platforms, which has sold millions of stolen account credentials.
This global crackdown, which targeted the Genesis Market platform, resulted in 119 arrests and involved more than 17 countries, Europol said in a statement.
208 properties were raided in the “unprecedented” operation by the FBI and Dutch police which began in 2019, Europol said.
24 arrests have been made in the UK, according to the UK crime agency, and 17 in the Netherlands, Dutch police said.
“Genesis Market had put the identities of over two million people up for sale at the time of its closure,” the European Police Office pointed out.
The platform offered for sale “bots” that infected victims’ devices through malware or other methods.
Actions have also taken place in countries such as Australia, Canada, the United States and more than 10 countries in Europe, including the United Kingdom.
“We have seriously disrupted the cybercrime ecosystem by removing one of its key enablers,” Edvardas Sileris, who heads Europol’s European Cybercrime Center, said in the statement.
