Europol Global Crackdown Takes Over 373,000 Dark Websites Offline

• Europol’s ‘Operation Alice’ dismantles huge dark web scam network
• 373,000 sites closed, 105 servers seized and operator identified
• 440 customers investigated for trying to purchase CSAM; global agencies involved

Earlier this month, Europol led a global operation against a major cybercrime network. It resulted in the removal of hundreds of thousands of websites from the dark web, the seizure of over a hundred servers and other hardware, and the identification of hundreds of cybercriminals and cybercrime facilitators.

For the past seven years (since 2019), a Chinese individual ran a network of dark websites called “Alice with Violence CP.” This network offered child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and cybercrime as a service (CaaS) to its customers, through a vast network of more than 373,000 websites.