europol

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Ukrainians arrest alleged admin of major crime forum XSS

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Yesterday, Ukrainian authorities arrested the suspected administrator of a notorious Russian-language crime forum, XSS.is.

In an X post, the Paris Prosecutor’s Office announced that Ukrainian authorities detained the suspect after an investigation conducted with French authorities’ and Europol’s help that began almost exactly four years ago.

XSS has been “one of the main hubs of global cybercrime” since 2013, French authorities said, allowing “the sale of malware, access to compromised systems, stolen data, and ransomware-related services.”

Used by criminals globally to cover up illicit activity, the forum was shut down soon after the admin’s arrest.

The suspected admin has so far not been named. But police said the suspect was identified after authorities began intercepting encrypted chats sent on a Jabber messaging server that members used, “thesecure.biz.”

Surveilling chats between forum users, the government eventually intercepted a message that tipped authorities off to the alleged admin’s identity back in September. Soon after, they deployed agents to find the admin, and ultimately, it took months for Ukrainian authorities to make the arrest, with both French and Europol authorities present.

“The intercepted messages revealed numerous illicit activities related to cybercrime and ransomware, and established that they generated at least $7 million in profits,” a translation of the press release said.

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Vast pedophile network shut down in Europol’s largest CSAM operation

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Europol has shut down one of the largest dark web pedophile networks in the world, prompting dozens of arrests worldwide and threatening that more are to follow.

Launched in 2021, KidFlix allowed users to join for free to preview low-quality videos depicting child sex abuse materials (CSAM). To see higher-resolution videos, users had to earn credits by sending cryptocurrency payments, uploading CSAM, or “verifying video titles and descriptions and assigning categories to videos.”

Europol seized the servers and found a total of 91,000 unique videos depicting child abuse, “many of which were previously unknown to law enforcement,” the agency said in a press release.

KidFlix going dark was the result of the biggest child sexual exploitation operation in Europol’s history, the agency said. Operation Stream, as it was dubbed, was supported by law enforcement in more than 35 countries, including the United States.

Nearly 1,400 suspected consumers of CSAM have been identified among 1.8 million global KidFlix users, and 79 have been arrested so far. According to Europol, 39 child victims were protected as a result of the sting, and more than 3,000 devices were seized.

Police identified suspects through payment data after seizing the server. Despite cryptocurrencies offering a veneer of anonymity, cops were apparently able to use sophisticated methods to trace transactions to bank details. And in some cases cops defeated user attempts to hide their identities—such as a man who made payments using his mother’s name in Spain, a local news outlet, Todo Alicante, reported. It likely helped that most suspects were already known offenders, Europol noted.

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Europol arrests 25 users of online network accused of sharing AI CSAM

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In South Korea, where AI-generated deepfake porn has been criminalized, an “emergency” was declared and hundreds were arrested, mostly teens. But most countries don’t yet have clear laws banning AI sex images of minors, and Europol cited this fact as a challenge for Operation Cumberland, which is a coordinated crackdown across 19 countries lacking clear guidelines.

“Operation Cumberland has been one of the first cases involving AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM), making it exceptionally challenging for investigators, especially due to the lack of national legislation addressing these crimes,” Europol said.

European Union member states are currently mulling a rule proposed by the European Commission that could help law enforcement “tackle this new situation,” Europol suggested.

Catherine De Bolle, Europol’s executive director, said police also “need to develop new investigative methods and tools” to combat AI-generated CSAM and “the growing prevalence” of CSAM overall.

For Europol, deterrence is critical to support efforts in many EU member states to identify child sex abuse victims. The agency plans to continue to arrest anyone discovered producing, sharing, and/or distributing AI CSAM while also launching an online campaign to raise awareness that doing so is illegal in the EU.

That campaign will highlight the “consequences of using AI for illegal purposes,” Europol said, by using “online messages to reach buyers of illegal content” on social media and payment platforms. Additionally, the agency will apparently go door-to-door and issue warning letters to suspects identified through Operation Cumberland or any future probe.

It’s unclear how many more arrests could be on the horizon in the EU, but Europol disclosed that 273 users of the Danish suspect’s online network were identified, 33 houses were searched, and 173 electronic devices have been seized.

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