UK police are raiding homes belonging to alleged members of the
DarkMarket identity fraud website.
DarkMarket had been
exposed as an FBI honey trap for criminals wanting to trade
stolen identities, bank card numbers and rogue computer code used
for
identity theft.
An FBI agent is said to have infiltrated the membership of
DarkMarket. He then managed to become an administrator for the
site, which was recently closed down by him when he said it had
come under too much scrutiny by the authorities.
Police across the world are now homing in on members, who have
left a trail of their activities on the site.
An alleged German bank card forger has already been arrested for
his involvement, and UK police have now raided addresses in London,
Manchester, Leicester, Humberside and South Yorkshire. Other raids
have taken place across the US and Turkey, among other
countries.
The UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) is involved in
the UK operation and is closely working with the FBI on the
operation.
What some victims of the alleged fraudsters will be asking,
however, is whether the FBI should have wound up the site
earlier.
It effectively provided a home for the fraudsters to trade over
a period of two years. A DarkMarket site server is said to have
been located in an FBI building in Pittsburgh.
The DarkMarket site was exposed as an FBI run site by a German
radio station.