German federal authorities arrested a 35-year-old German national in Mallorca, Spain this week under a European arrest warrant, charging him with rebuilding Crimenetwork, Germany’s largest darknet cybercrime marketplace, under Section 127 of the German Criminal Code and Sections 29a and 30a of the German Narcotics Act.
The original Crimenetwork ran since 2012 with 100,000 registered users before the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA), the Central Office for Combating Cybercrime (ZIT), and the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Frankfurt am Main dismantled it in late 2024. In March, its operator was sentenced to seven years and ten months in prison and ordered to forfeit more than €10 million in criminal proceeds, though that ruling isn’t yet final.
The suspect didn’t wait. Days after the December 2024 takedown, he built a new technical infrastructure under the same Crimenetwork name, offering a similar range of illicit goods and services. The reboot attracted 22,000 users and over 100 vendors, generating at least €3.6 million ($4.2 million) in revenue. A special unit of the Spanish National Police arrested him at his Mallorca residence. Authorities also seized approximately €194,000 ($228,000) in allegedly illicit assets and obtained substantial amounts of user and transaction data for further investigation.
BKA Director Carsten Meywirth put it directly: “The reboot of Crimenetwork has failed, and another administrator will have to answer before a German court.”
The suspect now faces prosecution in Germany. No trial date has been announced.
James Okafor