Albanian law enforcement has seized the Rydox cybercrime marketplace and arrested three administrators in collaboration with international partners.
Kosovo nationals Ardit Kutleshi, Jetmir Kutleshi, and Shpend Sokoli
were arrested on Thursday by Kosovo law enforcement and Albania's Special Anti-Corruption Body (SPAK). The U.S. Justice Department
indicted the first two for involvement in Rydox's operations, and they're awaiting extradition to the United States.
Ardit Kutleshi and Jetmir Kutleshi face multiple charges related to their Rydox admin roles, including two counts of identity theft, conspiracy to commit identity theft, aggravated identity theft, access device fraud, and money laundering. If convicted, each could receive five years for each charge, 10 years for access device fraud, and up to 20 years for money laundering.
Since February 2016, Rydox marketplace sellers have been involved in over 7,600 sales of credit card information, login credentials, and personal information such as social security numbers, names, and addresses stolen from thousands of U.S. citizens and various cybercrime tools and devices.
Rydox also offered for sale over 321,000 other "cybercrime products" to more than 18,000 users, including tools and materials for committing cyber crimes, such as tutorials and spam tools.
According to the indictment, registered users had to deposit a sum of cryptocurrency into their accounts before making a purchase via Perfect Money, Ethereum, Litecoin, Bitcoin ("BTC"), Monero, Ripple, Tron, or Verge payments deposited into a cryptocurrency wallet controlled by Rydox.
