A website and four domains belonging to WT1SHOP, an online crime market that offered for sale stolen credit cards, I.D. cards, and millions of login credentials, have been seized as a result of an international law enforcement operation, carried out by law enforcement authorities from Portugal, Moldova, Estonia, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands.
The US Department of Justice said in a press release that Portuguese authorities seized the WT1SHOP website, and the US seized four internet domains used to access the criminal marketplace (wt1shop[.]net, wt1store[.]cc, wt1store[.]com, wt1store[.]net).
WT1SHOP was one of the largest underground marketplaces catering to cyber criminals seeking to buy stolen personally identifying information (PII).
According to the DoJ, WT1SHOP held over 5.85 million records, including approximately 25,000 scanned driver’s licenses/passports, 1.7 million login credentials for various online shops, 108,000 bank accounts, 21,800 credit cards.
“As of June 2020, sellers on WT1SHOP had engaged in sales of approximately 2.4 million credentials for total proceeds of approximately $4 million. The credentials sold consisted of login credentials for retailers and financial institutions, email accounts, PayPal accounts, and identification cards, as well as credentials to remotely access and operate computers, servers, and network devices without authorization,” the authorities said, adding that in December 2021 the number of users and sellers on WT1SHOP had increased to nearly 106,273 users and 94 sellers with a total of approximately 5.85 million credentials available for sale.
The US authorities also charged WT1SHOP’s operator identified as Nicolai Colesnicov, a 36-year-old resident of Moldova. If found guilty, Colesnicov faces a prison sentence of up to 10 years for conspiracy and trafficking in unauthorized access devices.