Sting operation shuts illegal card trading forum
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A police operation has netted 60 suspected cybercriminals following the closure of credit card details trading site DarkMarket
A sting operation targeting international credit card details trading forum DarkMarket has led to almost 60 arrests in London, Manchester and Hull as well as in Turkey, Germany and the US. One individual was discovered to have spent £250,000 in just six weeks, on details with a potential value of £10 million.
The invitation-only site was used by criminals to trade stolen card data and bank logins. According to Sharon Lemon, deputy director of the Serious Organised Crime Agency, the most prized details were corporate credit cards belonging to frequent business travellers as they could be used all over the world to spend large sums without arousing suspicion.
Details surrounding the sting operation are speculative, following a report in Wired that German public radio station Südwestrundfunk had discovered leaked documents suggesting that the forum itself was a two-year FBI sting operation run from Pittsburgh.
The documents, including a memo from FBI cybersecurity officers to German police, allegedly stated that “the FBI has been successful in penetrating the inner ‘family’ of the carding forum DarkMarket” and that one of the site’s main players, Master Splynter, was in fact FBI cybercrime agent J Keith Mularski.
The closure of the site was apparently initiated by Master Splynter on 4 October, following the “unwelcome attention” generated by the alleged kidnapping and torturing of a police informant by a Turkish hacker selling ATM skimming devices on the site.
In late 2006 suspicious cybercriminals reportedly began to avoid DarkMarket after rumours that Master Splynter had logged on to the site from the FBI’s National Cyber Forensics Training Alliance.
Further reading
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