Overview
- Investigators seized about 105 servers and replaced the network’s sites with seizure banners on March 17 after a March 9–19 action coordinated by Europol.
- Authorities say the platforms were fake shops that used genuine child‑abuse preview images to solicit Bitcoin payments but delivered nothing.
- Roughly 600 users are under investigation, with 440 already identified; German police conducted 14 searches in nine states within a broader probe of 89 suspects.
- Cryptocurrency flows—analyzed with Dark Web Monitor and GraphSense—were traced to a legal payment service, tying thousands of purchases to individuals.
- An international arrest warrant names alleged operator Wang Shuaibo, a mid‑30s Chinese national in China, as probes and child‑risk interventions continue; about 18 BTC (≈€1.1 million) were tracked.