Nemesis Market, a notorious corner of the dark web popular with cybercriminals and drug dealers, was suddenly shut down after German police took control of its systems.
The German Federal Criminal Police (BKA) announced that it has seized Nemesis’s infrastructure and shut down its website.
Meanwhile, cryptocurrencies worth €94,000 were seized by police.
Nemesis Market has grown rapidly since its inception in 2021, with more than 150,000 user accounts and more than 1,100 registered sellers worldwide, trading a wide range of products, including drugs, hacker materials, stolen goods, as well as ransomware and DDoS attacks.
According to investigators, nearly 20% of all goods and services sold through the website originated in Germany.
However, since last week, visitors to the online crime and drug marketplace website have been warned by authorities that the website had been seized following a coordinated investigation by international law enforcement agencies that began in October 2022.
Apparently it’s not all work and no play at BKA, because whoever replaced the site’s title page added an animation of a spaceship from a retro video game and hit the Nemesis logo.
The site’s administrator, Francis, warned users to delete any digital traces they might have left behind after discovering that law enforcement had gained access to months of the site’s data:
Hi my name is Francis Nemesis the market has been taken over by one of the European law enforcement agencies please clear your house they have access to all your information from the last two months I will update you guys as soon as possible Nemesis will be back soon
For the thousands of people who use Nemesis Market, the warning may come too late, as police could use the data collected to identify individuals and make arrests.
At this stage, the BKA has not announced whether any managers or key personnel at Nemesis Market have been identified or arrested in connection with the seizure of the website.
Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in this guest author article are those of the contributor and do not necessarily reflect the views of Tripwire.
