LifeLock Blog

For two years Dark Market provided an exclusive marketplace for 2,500 of the world’s most accomplished identity thieves to buy, sell and trade stolen identities. “Dark Market” provided its carefully vetted members a country club of sorts where the professionals could meet to compare and review professional practices and tools.

What this elite group didn’t realize was that Dark Market was a Federal Bureau of Investigation snare. Master Splyntr, the site’s administrator, was actually J. Keith Mularski, an FBI agent. And, though the criminals thought Splyntr was logging on somewhere in Eastern Europe, in fact, he was working at National Cyber Forensics Training Alliance in Pittsburgh, PA.

Before the site was closed down last month millions of dollars had changed hands among the thieves. But while the site was up, it netted 56 arrests and saved $70 million in losses.

Shawn Henry, FBI Cyber Division Assistant Director, said the sting was a coordinated effort between the Bureau, the U.K.’s Serious Organised Crime Agency and other agencies in Turkey and Germany.

October 4th Master Splyntr notified forum members that the site was being closed down because of attention it was receiving from “a lot of the world services (agents of FBI, SS, and Interpol).”

In fact, the site was shut down and the information-gathering phase of the operation brought to a close after another of the site’s administrators, Chao, was arrested in Turkey for kidnapping and torturing a police informant.