German authorities announced today, Thursday, that they have shut down a large electronic market used for selling drugs, facilitating access to cybercrime services, and fraudulently obtaining credit card information. The German Federal Criminal Police Office, in a joint statement with prosecutors in Frankfurt, stated that investigators seized on Wednesday the infrastructure, specifically the server of the "Nemesis" market in Germany and Lithuania, in addition to cryptocurrencies worth 94,000 euros (102,000 dollars).
The statement added that the seizure followed an investigation carried out in collaboration with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, and criminal investigations. The platform was active on the dark web, a part of the internet that can only be accessed through specialized tools that provide greater anonymity.
According to German authorities, the platform was established in 2021 and had over 150,000 user accounts and more than 1,100 seller accounts worldwide, with nearly 20 percent of those located in Germany alone. The illicit items provided by the market include drugs, fraudulent access to data and goods, as well as services for committing cybercrimes, such as ransomware attacks, tracking, and distributed denial-of-service "DDoS" attacks.
According to German authorities, the data revealed this week will be retained for further investigations concerning sellers and users who exploited the platform.
