International fraudsters’ website shut down

An international website for cyber crooks, The Darkmarket forum, has been shut down. The website enabled fraudsters to buy and sell credit card details.
Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) said the website allowed criminals to exchange information about how to commit online fraud as well as offering details contained on the magnetic information strips on the back of credit cards.
Sixty people across the globe have been arrested in connection with the website, including arrests in Leicester, Manchester, Humberside, South Yorkshire and London.
Police used international crime specialists to infiltrate the website and identify the people using the site.
A spokesman for the agency said the operation was a “big success”.
“It was a huge website,” he said. “It was very significant in the online criminal fraternity.
“People were exchanging information about how to commit online fraud. It gave methodologies of how to steal data, and enabled a whole range of criminal activities, from how to go about stealing data to how to make the best use of it once it had been stolen. People are safer from identity fraud as a result.”
Soca said one of the people arrested had spent £250,000 buying personal data on the site in six weeks, which could have been used to make £10 million from identity fraud.
The website, which had been in operation for three years, could only be accessed by invitation.