Europol on Tuesday introduced the takedown of an invite-only encrypted messaging service known as MATRIX that is created by criminals for legal functions.
The joint operation, performed by French and Dutch authorities underneath the moniker Passionflower, comes within the aftermath of an investigation that was launched in 2021 after the messaging service was found on the telephone of a legal convicted for the homicide of a Dutch journalist Peter R. de Vries.
This allowed authorities to intercept messages being despatched through the service for a interval of three months, amassing a complete of greater than 2.3 million messages in 33 languages. The messages, Europol mentioned, are related to severe crimes equivalent to worldwide drug trafficking, arms trafficking, and cash laundering.
It is price noting at this stage that MATRIX is totally different from the open-source, decentralized messaging app of the identical identify (“matrix[.]org”). Additionally identified by different names equivalent to Mactrix, Totalsec, X-quantum, and Q-safe, it had at the very least 8,000 person accounts globally, who paid anyplace between $1,360 and $1,700 in cryptocurrency for a Google Pixel telephone and a six-month subscription to the service put in on it.
Based on Dutch police officers, the communication service provided a complete set of purposes, equivalent to the power to make video calls, preserve observe of transactions, and browse the web anonymously.
The company mentioned the legislation enforcement motion was supplemented by follow-up operations that had been carried out by Italian, Lithuanian, and Spanish counterparts.
Describing the infrastructure as “technically more complex” than Sky ECC and EncroChat, Europol mentioned the service consisted of greater than 40 servers in a number of nations, an important of which had been positioned in France and Germany.
As a part of the coordinated effort that commenced on December 3, 2024, one suspect in France and two others in Spain have been arrested, with 13 homes searched throughout the 2 nations and Lithuania. As well as, the principle servers in France and Germany have been seized.
The arrests embrace the alleged proprietor and supervisor of the service, a 52-year-old man of Lithuanian nationality, per the Politie. Moreover, €145,000 ($152,000) in money and €500,000 ($525,000) in cryptocurrency, in addition to 4 autos and greater than 970 cell phones have been confiscated.
“The encrypted communication landscape has become more fragmented following the takedown of several services such as Sky ECC, EncroChat, Exclu, and Ghost,” Europol mentioned.
“Criminals, in response to the disruptions of their messaging services, have been turning to a variety of less-established or custom-built communication tools that offer varying degrees of security and anonymity. While the new fragmented landscape poses challenges for law enforcement, the takedown of established communication channels shows that authorities are on top of the latest technologies that criminals use.”
Germany Shuts Down Crimenetwork Market
The event comes as Germany’s Federal Felony Police Workplace (aka Bundeskriminalamt or BKA) mentioned it has taken down Crimenetwork, the most important German-speaking cybercrime platform for unlawful items and providers, and arrested one in all its 29-year-old directors who goes by the alias Techmin.
At least 100,000 customers and over 100 sellers are estimated to have registered on the Crimenetwork. A majority of the shoppers are based mostly in German-speaking nations.
The operators, who acquired fee funds within the vary of 1-5% on every sale, additionally charged the sellers a month-to-month price for promoting and gross sales licenses. Between 2018 and 2024, transactions on the illicit service amounted to 1,000 Bitcoin and over 20,000 Monero (greater than $100 million mixed).
“‘Crimenetwork’ served as a marketplace for illegal goods and services, in particular for stolen data, drugs and forged documents,” the BKA mentioned. “The platform has existed since 2012 and has been one of the central trading platforms of the German-speaking underground economy for many years.”
South Korea Arrests 6 for Including DDoS Function to Satellite tv for pc Receivers
The takedowns additionally observe a separate legislation enforcement train in South Korea that has led to the arrest of six folks related to an unnamed satellite tv for pc broadcasting receiver producer for equipping the units with capabilities to conduct distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) assaults.
The malicious performance, the Nationwide Police Company mentioned, was distributed on the request of a buyer to 240,000 models both underneath the guise of firmware updates or preloaded on the time of product cargo.
