The German authorities have announced the removal of a notorious dark web market that is known for selling drugs, malware and other illegal items.
The Federal Police Service (BKA) and the public prosecutor of Frankfurt for Cybercrime (ZIT) announced the news on Wednesday, but revealed that the coordinated action took place on December 16.
The English-speaking Kingdom Market, which was accessible via the Tor and I2P anonymization networks, was operational since at least March 2021, with a focus on trade narcotics. However, visitors can also go through hacktools, fake -royal IDs and other criminal services, the BKA said.
Tens of thousands of customers and several hundred sellers were registered with the market, which mentioned more than 42,000 products at the time of his Takedown, claimed the notification.
Buyers paid in Bitcoin, Litecoin, Monero and Zcash to maintain anonymity and the operators of the site took a 3%cut, it added.
The BKA recognized the help of law enforcement partners in the US, Switzerland, Moldova and Ukraine.
Read more about Dark Web Takedowns: Dark Web Bust leads to arrest of 288 suspects
The hunt is now for the managers of the site.
One of the suspects, Alan Bill, has already been arrested in the US about drug trafficking, identity theft and money laundering costs, according to reports on X (formerly Twitter).
“The German authorities have fun after grabbing the market for the dark Webkoninkrijk, by turning the name into ‘Fallen Kingdom’ and then using the private #pgp key to inform people after the police had arrested Alan Bill, a #slovakia National in the US,” noticed After time X.
However, Immuniweb CEO, Ilia Kolochenko, argued that sporadic arrests and branchedowns of this kind of rarely are enough to push back the tide of cyber-compatible crime.
“A considerable number of hacking forums or market places that are delivered a few weeks after seizure under a similar or new identity. Illicite trade continues, while new managers and operators of underground means take even better precautions to hinder research,” he added.
“In the midst of global geopolitical uncertainty, many cyber crime groups work safely from non-outstanding areas of law in absolute impunity. Payments of ransom in cryptocurrencies remain largely not tracing and immune to seizure.”