Law agencies across the world have cracked open a criminal website that sold people’s online identities for as little as 56 pence.
Genesis Market traded more than 80 million passwords and logins of unsuspecting users.
Fraudsters stole millions of pounds from users of PayPal, Netflix, Facebook and Amazon.
Seventeen law enforcement agencies – including Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) – were involved in the operation.
More than 120 people have been arrested.
The NCA said:
“We estimate there are tens of thousands of victims in the UK who’ve lost money to hundreds of British criminals.
“The site mimicked victims’ browsers, managing to evade security checks on social media and shopping sites.
“This allowed the criminals to essentially masquerade as the victim and socially engineer them for further offences through mapping friends, family and personal circumstances.”
Will Lyne, the NCA’s head of cyber intelligence, said:
“Genesis Market is one of the top criminal access marketplaces anywhere in the world.
“It is an enormous enabler of fraud and a range of other criminal activity online by facilitating that initial access to victims, which is a critical part of the business model in a whole range of nefarious activity.”
A total of 31 raids carried saw 24 users of the site arrested in the UK under the Computer Misuse Act and for fraud offences, including two men aged 34 and 36 in Grimsby, Lincolnshire.
In total, there were around 120 arrests, over 200 searches and close to 100 preventative actions carried out across the globe.
The website now carries the FBI logo and the message:
“This website has been seized”.
An investigation to find the ringleaders of the site is ongoing.