The US and Europe dismantled one of the world’s largest hacker forums

The US Department of Justice announced on April 12 that it had prosecuted the citizen Portugal Diego Santos Coelho (21 years old), founder and main administrator of RaidForums.

Coelho was arrested in the UK on January 31 and is awaiting extradition to the US to stand trial. In the announcement, the US Department of Justice said that there was a court order to control 3 RaidForums domains including raidforums.com, RF.ws and Raid.lol.

Europol headquarters in The Hague, Netherlands Reuters

This is a help forum hacker buy and sell stolen information, usually bank account numbers, credit card information, social security numbers, and other accounts.

In a notice on the same day, the European Police Agency (Europol) said it had taken down the RaidForums websites with the coordination of the authorities of other countries. AmericaEngland, Germany, Sweden, Portugal and Romania.

Europol announced that two of Coelho’s accomplices were also in custody, but did not disclose their identities. Coelho is facing a six-count indictment, including conspiracy, fraud through an access device, and aggravated identity theft.

From January 1, 2015 until his arrest, Coelho operated and managed the websites. According to Europol, RaidForums was started in 2015 and is one of the largest hacker forums world with more than half a million users. When creating this forum, Coelho was only 14 years old.

The US Department of Justice said that in order to profit from nefarious activity on the platforms, RaidForums has charged membership fees and senior members enjoy more benefits.

The company Hudson Rock specializes in monitoring cybercrime activity describes RaidForums as a forum Cybercrime most important global existence in recent years.