Footage has emerged of the inside of a five-storey abandoned underground NATO bunker built with 31inch thick concrete walls in Germany allegedly converted by criminal gangs into a high tech data centre to host darknet market websites. 

An Australian man was arrested on Monday accused of running a $220million illegal darkweb marketplace – called the biggest in the world and ‘ for criminals’ – after ha was tracked following the bunker’s discovery. 

The joint investigation by Australian Federal Police, Scotland Yard, the , Europol, and German authorities, among others, arrested the man, 34, as he allegedly tried flee across the Danish border into . 

The man, known only as Julian K, is the alleged operator of DarkMarket and has been detained by German investigators.

darkmarket 2024 was shut down on Monday and its new servers, located in Ukraine and Moldova after relocating from the bunker, were taken off the internet, prosecutors in the city of Koblenz said.

‘Until its closure, DarkMarket was probably the largest marketplace worldwide on the darknet market, with almost 500,000 users and more than 2400 sellers,’ prosecutors said. 

More than 320,000 transactions were conducted via the website including the sale of drugs, counterfeit money, stolen or falsified credit cards, anonymous SIM cards and malware.

The transactions were reportedly worth a total of 4,650 bitcoin and 12,800 monero – two cryptocurrencies – for an equivalent sum of more than $221million. 

The servers will be forensically examined by authorities to uncover information about the website’s operations and criminal network. 

The accused man has already fronted a German court and been denied bail – to be transferred to a German prison in the next few days. 

He has reportedly refused to speak to investigators or court officials. 

German prosecutors said the man was trying to flee Denmark into Germany when arrested and was travelling through Europe either on holiday or conducting business for the illegal website. 

They said the investigation around DarkMarket originated after the discovery of the data processing centre run by criminals in the 5,000sqm former unused bunker in south-west Germany. 

The data facility hosted illegal websites, which included DarkMarket temporarily, and was shut down in 2019. 

The building, constructed by the West-German military, in the mid-1970s descended five-storeys below the surface and was built with 31inch thick concrete walls to withstand a nuclear blast. 

A meteorological division of the military used the facility after the Cold War until 2012 to forecast weather patterns where German soldiers were deployed. 

The building was sold to a foundation based in Denmark in 2012 after officials could find no other buyers for the vacant facility. 

A number of people were arrested after the discovery of the data centre – accused of being part of a criminal network and dark web marketplaces being accessories to hundreds of thousands of illegal transactions involving prohibited material such as drugs and hacking tools. 

Some already went on trial in October. 

The darkweb was originally developed for the United States military but has been overrun by criminals because they can conceal their identity on the platform. 

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Heather Morgan was freed by a judge Monday, pending trial by a federal court.

But her husband Ilya Lichtenstein remains behind bars due to prosecutors’ fears that he could seek immunity in , where he is also a citizen.

Judge Beryl Howell said on Monday that 31-year-old Morgan, referred as ‘Razzlekahn’ due to her rapping background, was no longer held in custody after the government deemed that she wasn’t as involved in the planning of the alleged crimes as her 34-year-ld husband, Ilya Lichtenstein, who was largely in control of the funds. 

The judge also considered Morgan’s health issues as a factor, after she had recently had surgery to remove a lump in her breast.

With follow-up appointments expected, she will be closely monitored with an ankle bracelet GPS monitor while she is under house arrest. 

Morgan has also been given restrictions on computer use, and a ban on carrying out cryptocurrency transactions. 

The defense told the court that both defendants would guarantee to appear for all remaining court dates, and darkmarket 2024 pointed out that both of their families, who were in court, were willing to bet their homes on it.

However, Howell finally ruled that there would be a significant ‘flight risk’ for Lichtenstein and agreed with federal prosecutors who insisted that just a portion of the millions in cryptocurrency that the couple stole could buy a new house or ‘buy each of their parents a private island.’ 

The judge also shared her concerns that Lichtenstein, who is a dual citizen of the United States and Russia, could seek refuge in a eastern European country, where he could possibly be granted immunity.

Federal prosecutors also revealed that Lichtenstein had a file on his computer titled ‘passport ideas,’ which included several darknet market vendors that sell passports, bank cards and other forms of identification. 

The New York couple was arrested earlier in February after they conspired to launder cryptocurrency that was stolen during the 2016 hack of Bitfinex, a virtual currency exchange platform, dark market link web darknet market links and currently estimated at $4.5 billion. 

Both are accused of using several techniques to launder Bitcoin, including using fake identifies to create accounts; coding computer programs to execute fast, automated transactions; depositing stolen funds in several accounts across one crypto exchange to cover their previous transactions; converting Bitcoin to other forms of cryptocurrency; and creating U.S.-based business accounts to wire their funds and make them seem legitimate. 

Over five years, a hacker allegedly laundered 119,754 bitcoin through 2,000 transactions on Bitfinex’s website before transferring the crypto funds into Lichtenstein’s digital wallet. 

The couple could face up to 25 years years behind bars if found guilty. 

Bitfinex is a cryptocurrency exchange registered in the British Virgin Islands.

In August 2016, hackers were able to breach its security firewall before stealing about 120,000 bitcoin from its customers.

The amount that was stolen was worth roughly $70 million at the time, when the price of bitcoin was around $600.

At the time, Bitfinex announced to its customers that they would lose 36 percent of their funds to compensate for the losses from the incident.

It also created special digital tokens that were able to keep track of customers’ losses. 

Some of the tokens could exchanged for shares of iFinex, the company that operates Bitfinex, while other tokens could be redeemed if the stolen bitcoins were recovered in the future.

The US Department of Justice announced that it would create a special judicial process for dark market onion victims of the hack to reclaim their losses.

The hackers have never been identified. 

Morgan and Lichtenstein were arrested by federal prosecutors of laundering the bitcoin stolen from Bitfinex, but they are not being accused for actually stealing the bitcoin in the hack.

Authorities were able to recover $3.6B after seizing couple’s private keys to digital wallets after their arrest earlier this month. 

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In a series of cringey videos posted to YouTube, the wannabe performer can be seen walking around Wall Street while reciting lyrics such as: ‘I’m many things, a rapper, an economist, a journalist, a writer, a CEO, and a dirty, dirty, dirty dirty h*’. 

Morgan’s music videos, including the 2019 single Versace Bedouin, are all on her YouTube page together with various unboxing videos. The page has been made private since her arrest.

She and her husband Ilya ” Lichtenstein, 34, dark web markets who had bail set at $5million were both arrested for allegedly laundering $4.5billion in  stolen in the 2016 Bitfinex exchange hack. 

The pair were arrested on Tuesday in Manhattan on federal charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to defraud the United States. 

But when Morgan wasn’t allegedly shifting around billions of dollars in the world of cryptocurrency, she was taking to the mic and shooting rap videos. 

One website which decided to wade through all of the footage suggested ‘Laundering billions in Bitcoin may not even be the worst crime of her life.’ 

‘When she’s not reverse-engineering black markets to think of better ways to combat fraud and cybercrime, she enjoys rapping and designing streetwear fashion,’ her  states. 

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Washington has announced sanctions against a cryptocurrency exchange it says has worked with ransomware attackers

The United States imposed sanctions Tuesday on cryptocurrency exchange SUEX for its ties to ransomware extortionists, dark darknet market url as Washington seeks to crack down on a sharp rise in digital crime attacks.

The move marks the first US sanctions against a virtual currency exchange and they come as President Joe Biden’s administration has been under pressure to act after high-profile hacks and data breaches.

The attacks on a major US oil pipeline, a meatpacking company and Microsoft Exchange email system caused real-world problems and dark markets drew attention to the vulnerability to US infrastructure to digital pirates.

The US Treasury Department, which announced the sanctions, did not say if SUEX was implicated in any of those incidents, but noted that 40 percent of the exchange’s known transaction history was linked to “illicit actors.”

“Some virtual currency exchanges are exploited by malicious actors, but others, as is the case with SUEX, facilitate illicit activities for their own illicit gains,” a Treasury statement said, adding they are the first sanctions against a crypto exchange.

As a result of the sanctions, any assets of the platform under US jurisdiction are now blocked and Americans are barred from using SUEX.

– $10 million reward –

Crypto experts from Chainalysis noted large sums had moved through the platform, much of it from suspect sources.

“In Bitcoin alone, SUEX’s deposit addresses hosted at large exchanges have received over $160 million from ransomware actors, scammers and darknet market dark market 2024 operators,” said a report from Chainalysis, which provides data on cryptocurrency.

SUEX is registered in the Czech Republic, and has branches in Russia and the Middle East.

Chainalysis said the US designation is important because it “represents significant action” by Washington to combat the money laundering that is key to digital crime.

The United States also issued a fresh warning against companies and individuals paying ransoms to unlock their files seized by ransomware hackers.

It noted that Americans could face penalties themselves if they are involved in making ransom payments as the United States already has a blacklist of people and countries, some of which are linked to ransomware attacks.

Tuesday’s announcement comes after Washington in July offered $10 million rewards for information on online extortionists abroad as it stepped up efforts to halt a sharp rise in ransomware attacks.

This year has seen a slew of prominent ransomware attacks which have disrupted a US pipeline, a meat processor and the software firm Kaseya — affecting 1,500 businesses, dark markets 2024 many of them far from the limelight.

Some $350 million was paid to malicious cyber actors last year, a spike of 300 percent from 2019, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

US officials say many of the attacks originate in Russia although they have debated to what extent there is state involvement.

Russia denies responsibility.

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The site, known as DarkMarket, was shut down on Monday, prosecutors in the southwestern city of Koblenz said.
All sorts of drugs, forged money, stolen or forged credit cards, anonymous mobile phone SIM cards and malware were among the things offered for sale there, they added.

German investigators were assisted in their months-long probe by U.S. authorities and by Australian, British, dark web market urls darknet market link Danish, Swiss, Ukrainian and Moldovan police.

The marketplace had nearly 500,000 users and more than 2,400 vendors, prosecutors said.

They added that it processed more than 320,000 transactions, and Bitcoin and dark Market onion Monero cryptocurrency to the value of more than 140 million euros ($170 million) were exchanged.

The darknet market is a part of the web accessible only with specialized identity-cloaking tools.

The suspected operator, a 34-year-old Australian man, dark web market list websites was arrested near the German-Danish border.

Prosecutors said a judge has ordered him held in custody pending possible formal charges, and dark market onion he hasn’t given any information to investigators.

More than 20 servers in Moldova and Ukraine were seized, German prosecutors said. They hope to find information on those servers about other participants in the marketplace.

Prosecutors said the move against DarkMarket originated in an investigation of a data processing center installed in a former NATO bunker in southwestern Germany that hosted sites dealing in drugs and other illegal activities.

It was shut down in 2019.

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LONDON, Feb 11 (Reuters) – Criminals are using a small group of cryptocurrency brokers and services to launder hundreds of millions of dollars of dirty virtual money, research shared with Reuters showed on Thursday.

Just 270 cryptocurrency addresses, dark darknet market list many connected to over-the-counter brokers, received $1.3 billion in illicit digital coins last year – some 55% of all criminal crypto flows identified by U.S.

blockchain researcher Chainalysis.

A cryptocurrency address is a set of random letters and numbers that represents a location on a virtual network. Bitcoin, for instance, can be sent from a particular address to others on its network.

The illegal use of cryptocurrencies has long worried regulators and law enforcement, with U.S.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde both calling for tighter oversight last month.

The calls for stricter rules have come as bigger investors, especially from the United States, dark market onion have stepped up their embrace of bitcoin, turbo-charging a 1,000% rally for the world’s biggest cryptocurrency since March last year.

Bitcoin hit an all-time high of over $48,200 on Tuesday after Elon Musk’s Tesla Inc revealed a $1.5 billion bet on the coin, leading some investors to claim cryptocurrencies were set to become a mainstream asset class.

Yet virtual money is subject to patchy regulation across the world, and remains popular with criminals.

On Wednesday, for instance, European police agency Europol said it assisted in the arrest of hackers suspected of stealing crypto assets worth $100 million.

The Chainalysis study website only covered crime that originates on the blockchain ledger that underpins most cryptocurrencies, including scams, dark darknet market 2024 cyberheists, ransomware and darknet markets url marketplaces used to buy contraband.

Also linked to the digital addresses were services connected to cryptocurrency exchanges.

Some may have received illicit funds inadvertently due to lax compliance checks, the study said.

The true scale of money laundering and other crime using cryptocurrencies – for example where criminals use bitcoin to launder traditional cash – is not known.

The United States, Russia and China received the highest volume of digital currency from illicit addresses, reflecting their high shares of crypto trading volumes, Chainalysis said.

(Reporting by Tom Wilson. Editing by Mark Potter)

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The site, known as DarkMarket, was shut down on Monday, prosecutors in the southwestern city of Koblenz said.
All sorts of drugs, forged money, stolen or darknet market sites forged credit cards, anonymous mobile phone SIM cards and malware were among the things offered for sale there, they added.

German investigators were assisted in their months-long probe by U.S. authorities and by Australian, British, Danish, Swiss, Dark market link Ukrainian and dark web link Moldovan police.

The marketplace had nearly 500,000 users and more than 2,400 vendors, prosecutors said.

They added that it processed more than 320,000 transactions, and Bitcoin and Monero cryptocurrency to the value of more than 140 million euros ($170 million) were exchanged.

The darknet market is a part of the web accessible only with specialized identity-cloaking tools.

The suspected operator, a 34-year-old Australian man, was arrested near the German-Danish border.

Prosecutors said a judge has ordered him held in custody pending possible formal charges, and he hasn’t given any information to investigators.

More than 20 servers in Moldova and Ukraine were seized, German prosecutors said. They hope to find information on those servers about other participants in the marketplace.

Prosecutors said the move against DarkMarket originated in an investigation of a data processing center installed in a former NATO bunker in southwestern Germany that hosted sites dealing in drugs and other illegal activities.

It was shut down in 2019.

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