The U.S. Department of Justice announced today the seizure of the RaidForums website, a famous marketplace for cybercriminals to buy and sell hacked data, as well as the filing of unsealed criminal charges against RaidForums' chief administrator, Diogo Santos Coelho, 21, of Portugal.
Coelho was detained in the U.K. He was taken into custody on Jan. 31 at the issued by the U.S., and he remains in detention pending the conclusion of his extradition procedures.
"Our interagency actions to disassemble his advanced online platform - which facilitated a wide range of criminal activity - should come as a comfort to the millions who were victimized by it, and as a heads up to those cybercriminals who participated in these types of nefarious activities," Jessica D. Aber, a U.S. attorney, said.
In the operation, which was coordinated by Europol and brought together law enforcement from the U.S., the U.K., Sweden, Portugal, and Romania, the suspected administrator of RaidForums and two other people were arrested.
RaidForums, which launched in 2015, has over 500,000 users, making it one of the world's largest illegal markets of its kind, according to Europol. Its data was gathered from breaches and other cyber crimes committed by U.S. companies in a variety of industries over the last few years.
The government's seizure of these domains will prevent RaidForums members from trafficking in stolen data from corporations, academic institutions, and governmental entities in the U.S. and elsewhere, including various databases of the sensitive, private data of millions of people all over the world.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the hundreds of databases contained stolen bank routing and account information, login credentials, and Social Security numbers, in addition to credit card numbers.
In addition, a six-count indictment charging Coelho with conspiracy, access device fraud, and aggravated identity theft in connection with his role as RaidForums' chief administrator was unsealed in the Eastern District of Virginia.
As per the charges, Coelho allegedly controlled and served as the chief administrator of RaidForums between Jan. 1, 2015, and on or about Jan. 31, 2022, which he ran with the assistance of other website administrators.
Coelho and his co-conspirators are accused of designing and administering the platform's software and computer infrastructure, establishing and enforcing rules for its users, and creating and managing sections of the website dedicated to promoting the trades of contraband, including a subforum titled "Leaks Market" that described itself as such.
