Dutch Police Nab Suspected Genesis Market Super User

Dutch police arrested a suspected super user of Genesis Market, characterizing him as likely one of the busted criminal bazaar’s top 10 most active buyers of stolen digital credentials and access to infected computers.

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The Netherlands’ national police force disclosed the July 18 arrest on Monday, when the unnamed suspect made a first appearance before a magistrate judge. A spokesman for the Public Prosecution Service said the Dutch citizen will remain in custody for at least another two weeks and faces a growing list of charges including identity fraud and possession of stolen payment information. The “investigation is still ongoing so the list can be longer when the suspect has to appear in court,” said Ruben van Well of the Cybercrime Team Rotterdam.

In April, international law enforcement dismantled Genesis Market in a coordinated takedown dubbed Operation Cookie Monster. The operation – coordinated by the FBI alongside European, Australian and Canadian law enforcement – led to 170 arrests worldwide (see: Police Seize Hacker Bazaar Genesis Market).

Police said the suspect, 32, ordinarily lives in Brazil but was arrested in the Holland town of Barendrecht. They said he made transactions on the marketplace worth tens of thousands of euros. Police are saying little about how they caught the suspect other than to say VPNs and payments made in cryptocurrency don’t entirely erase digital traces.

Genesis Market offered access to more than 1.5 million compromised computers around the world and more than 80 million account credentials. In addition to login credentials, the platform sold device fingerprints including browser cookies and system information.

With this latest action, Dutch police have arrested 18 individuals from the Netherlands in connection with Genesis Market activities.

Despite Genesis Market’s shutdown in April, top market sellers remained at large and continued to sell cyber intrusion capabilities, the BBC reported in May. The Dutch police warned that citizens still faced risks from Genesis users since criminals could still use the malicious tools obtained from the marketplace to carry out attacks despite the police action.

The agency has launched a portal to assist citizens in identifying if their information has been compromised on the marketplace. The portal also has helped the authorities identify more than 1,800 Dutch Genesis Market victims.