German police have raided a data processing center located in a former NATO bunker which was operating an illegal crime ring that relied upon crypto.
German Authorities Bust Dark Web Crime Ring
According to the report, authorities seized more than $41 million in funds linked to dark web sales of drugs and other illegal activities. The criminals caught in the raid were accused of operating these illegal marketplaces through their data center established in the former NATO military bunker located in western Germany.
The main suspect in the raid is a 59-year-old Dutchman who purchased ownership of the bunker in the German town of Traben-Trarbach. Authorities say the suspect outfitted the bunker as a heavily secured data processing center “in order to make it available to clients, according to our investigations, exclusively for illegal purposes.” Twelve additional suspects have been listed as apart of the investigation with seven arrested during the bunker raid.
Investigators say the criminals were responsible for hosting “Wall Street Market,” one of the world’s largest online criminal marketplaces for the sale of drugs and hacking tools, in addition to illicit substance portals “Cannabis Road” and “Orange Chemicals.” The illegal platforms utilized cryptocurrency to keep transactions anonymous.
The crime ring has also been tied to the 2016 botnet attack on German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom, which knocked out over 1 million customer routers.
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