The German police have seized infrastructure for the darknet Nemesis Market cybercrime marketplace in Germany and Lithuania, disrupting the site's operation.
The Federal Criminal Police Office in Germany (BKA) and the Frankfurt cybercrime combating unit (ZIT) conducted the action on Wednesday, March 20, 2024, with law enforcement taking down the website and confiscating approximately $100,000 in cash.
The Nemesis Market was launched in 2021 as a new marketplace to purchase illegal drugs and narcotics, stolen data and credit cards, and various cybercrime services related to ransomware, phishing, and distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.
The platform only prohibited the sale of child abuse material, contract killing services, weapons, and Fentanyl-based substances.
At its peak, Nemesis counted over 150,000 user accounts and 1,100 seller accounts worldwide, with about 20% of them being based in Germany.
BKA's
announcement says investigations into Nemesis Market started in October 2022, involving German, Lithuanian, and American agencies, including the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI).
