Global Europol crackdown knocks over 373,000 dark web sites offline

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Europol’s “Operation Alice” dismantles massive dark web scam network
373,000 sites shut down, 105 servers seized, operator identified
440 customers investigated for attempting to buy CSAM; global agencies involved

Earlier this month, Europol led a global operation against a major cybercrime network. It resulted in the takedown of hundreds of thousands of dark web websites, seizure of more than a hundred servers and other hardware, and the identification of hundreds of cybercriminals and cybercrime facilitators.

For the past seven years (since 2019), a Chinese individual was running a network of dark web sites called “Alice with Violence CP”. This network offered child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and cybercrime-as-a-service (CaaS) to its customers, through a vast network of more than 373,000 websites.

Customers would pay anywhere between $20 and $250 to get either a “few gigabytes”, or “several terabytes” of CSAM content, sold in “packages”. However, the entire operation was a scam and people never got anything despite paying. Still, the operator made around $400,000 from some 10,000 customers.

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Operation Alice

In 2021, Europol started its investigation into the fraudulent network and on March 9 2026 kicked off “Operation Alice” which, at first, only targeted the platform’s operator. In the meantime, the law enforcement agency managed to identify 440 customers who used the service and, because they were looking to purchase child pornography, are now being investigated themselves.

“The operation is still ongoing against more than a hundred of those individuals,” Europol said in a press release.

The operation ended on March 19, the agency said, with the network’s operator “identified”, as well as 440 customers. More than 373,000 dark web sites were shut down, and 105 servers were seized. The police also seized computers, mobile phones, and data carriers (flash drives and similar).

Twenty three national law enforcement organizations participated in Operation Alice, including the US Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the UK National Crime Agency (NCA), and agencies in Australia, France, Germany, Spain, Ukraine, and many other countries.

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Sead is a seasoned freelance journalist based in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He writes about IT (cloud, IoT, 5G, VPN) and cybersecurity (ransomware, data breaches, laws and regulations). In his career, spanning more than a decade, he’s written for numerous media outlets, including Al Jazeera Balkans. He’s also held several modules on content writing for Represent Communications.

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