- Europol dismantles underground data forum LeakBase
- Hosted platform for trading stolen data with global reach
- Authorities confiscated the domain and attacked active users
Several people have reportedly been arrested during a wide-ranging police operation aimed at dismantling a popular underground data breach forum.
Europol announced a major international operation that took down LeakBase, a forum that, as the agency explains, “established itself as a central hub in the cybercrime ecosystem.”
It was created in 2021 and in four years it had more than 142,000 registered users, published about 32,000 publications and sent more than 215,000 private messages.
Interventions, home searches and arrests
In this forum, which operated on the open web and in English, users could buy, sell and exchange compromised, stolen data from various companies and individuals around the world. Russia was apparently off limits and the forum did not allow the sale or publication of any data related to the country.
On March 3, 2026, law enforcement authorities in several countries and jurisdictions took around 100 actions and conducted home searches, knock-and-talk interventions, and arrests.
Europol did not say how many people were arrested, on what charges or where they were located. He did say that police took “action” against 37 of the forum’s most active users.
A day later, he took over the forum’s domain and defaced it. The forum’s database was also seized by authorities, who are now working to deanonymize users and have apparently already “engaged directly with several suspects.”
“This operation demonstrates that no corner of the Internet is beyond the reach of international law enforcement. What began as a dark forum for stolen data has now been dismantled, and those who believed they could hide behind anonymity are being identified and held accountable,” said Edvardas Šileris, director of Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre.
“This is a clear message to cybercriminals around the world: if you traffic in other people’s stolen information, authorities will find you and bring you to justice.”
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