Manager of illicit dark web platform arrested in Santa Ponça
Spanish and German officers detained a man in Mallorca who ran Crimenetwork, a criminal deep internet portal. The operation dismantled the infrastructure and resulted in five arrests in total.
Manager of illicit dark web platform arrested in Santa Ponça
Officers from the National Police, working with police forces from Germany, have taken into custody in the Majorcan town of Santa Ponça—which belongs to the municipality of Calvià—the person responsible for Crimenetwork. This portal was one of the most significant spaces on the dark web for the distribution of illegal products and services.
After appearing before a judge, the arrested man was sent to preventive custody within an international legal cooperation proceeding opened with Germany. During the course of the major operation, four other people were arrested in German territory. Three search warrants and house searches were carried out in that country and two on the Balearic island. The central server of the portal was also disabled; it had housed more than one hundred thousand participants, according to data provided by the Superior Police Command of the Balearic Islands.
The investigation into this network, which offered its services under the model of "crime as a service", began in the first month of 2023 following a request for mutual assistance presented by the security authorities of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. The aim was to find a German citizen who was identified as the public face of Crimenetwork, classified as one of the most active illegal exchange communities among German speakers on the darknet.
Through various investigative measures, officers were able to establish that the individual had settled in Mallorca. The suspect had taken considerable precautions, including several changes of residence, in order to hamper any attempt to trace him. Nevertheless, investigators were able to keep him under surveillance and determine what electronic devices and communication channels he was using.
The site operated exclusively through the TOR network and marketed a varied range of illegal activities: narcotics, forged documentation, stolen financial information, tools and programmes for identity theft, as well as fraudulent access to digital platforms. Crimenetwork emerged as a replacement for another parallel market with the same name that authorities dismantled on 12 February 2024 in a joint operation by the BKA—the German federal criminal police—and the Public Prosecutor's Office of Frankfurt am Main.
The portal operated using an escrow mechanism in which the managers acted as intermediaries in payments made with virtual currency, charging a percentage for each completed transaction. Once the appropriate judicial authorisations had been obtained and using the data gathered under the auspices of the European Investigation Order, officers conducted two search warrants on properties linked to the detainee in the island territory.
During these interventions, numerous technological devices and other items useful to the investigation were seized, with consistent evidence found linking the detainee to the direction and operation of the criminal portal.
Simultaneously, German agencies carried out various operations in their jurisdiction: three raids and the arrest of four individuals allegedly involved in the scheme. The computer equipment that supported Crimenetwork was also disabled, with its connections redirected to a domain managed by German law enforcement authorities that disseminates informational audiovisual material about the intervention, for purposes of raising awareness and deterring cybercrime.
Source: Majorca Daily Bulletin
Source: Majorca Daily Bulletin