🚨 International Operation: Seizure of Kingdom Market and Arrest
- Leadership: The operation was led by the German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) and the Frankfurt internet-crime unit (ZIT).
- Outcome: Seizure of Kingdom Market and the arrest of a suspected admin.
🌐 Seizure Details and Background
- Confirmation: The BKA confirmed the seizure of Kingdom Market in a press release on December 20, 2023.
- Initiation: The seizure of the market server infrastructure began on December 16, involving law enforcement agencies from the USA, Switzerland, Moldova, and Ukraine.
- Market Launch: Kingdom Market was launched in March 2021, allowing users to buy or sell illicit drugs, fake documents, stolen information, and other goods and services.
- Listings: At the time of the takedown, the market had over 42,000 listings.
🚓 Law Enforcement Actions
- Seizure Banner: In addition to placing a seizure banner on Kingdom Market's homepage, law enforcement made a post on Dread using the market's PGP key, taunting its users.
🕵️♂️ Arrest of Alan Bill
- Identity: US authorities arrested Alan Bill, a Slovakian, linked to the aliases "Vend0r" and "KingdomOfficial".
- Evidence: Investigators traced crypto sent from Kingdom's wallet to Bill's accounts on undisclosed exchanges. The IP address used to access the accounts was also used to access the market's Reddit account.
- Google Account: A search of Bill's Google account led to the discovery of passwords and seed phrases for multiple cryptocurrency wallets. One of the wallets had received approximately $4,590 in bitcoin from Kingdom's wallet.
- Arrest Date: Bill was arrested on December 15.
🔍 Ongoing Investigations
- Progress: The BKA revealed that the analysis of data acquired from the market's servers and investigations to identify Bill's partners are ongoing.
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