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Former NATO bunker in Traben-Trarbach successfully excavated: arrest of seven suspects and several searches
The Attorney General in Koblenz, dr. Jürgen Brauer, and the President of the State Office of Criminal Investigation, Johannes Kunz, report in the press conference that has been going on since 12:00 noon about the background and the elaborate investigations of a - as far as can be seen - proceedings against 13 defendants, which were previously unprecedented in Germany.
The State Central Office for Cybercrime (LZC) of the Prosecutor Generalate Koblenz and the State Office of Criminal Investigation Rhineland-Palatinate have been carrying out a comprehensive and extremely time-consuming and labor-intensive investigation against the operators of a data center called "Bulletproof Hoster" for almost five years.
The special service of such a hoster is to provide customers with protection against state access and thereby thwart investigations. For the first time, German investigative authorities have succeeded in lifting such a hoster.
According to the results of the investigation, there is an urgent suspicion against the perpetrators of operating a data center in a former NATO bunker in Traben-Trarbach under the name "Cyberbunker" whose sole purpose was to store websites of criminal offenders and theirs To allow criminal offenses so first. The bunker hosted numerous websites used by internationally active criminals to distribute banned goods such as drugs and fake documents and stolen data, distribute child pornography, and conduct large-scale cyberattacks. As far as were known the following market places / forums customers of the accused:
"Cannabis Road": On this page 87 sellers of illegal drugs of all kinds were registered. Overall, several thousand retail sales of cannabis products are said to have been processed via the platform.
"Wall Street Market": According to investigations by the Attorney General Frankfurt, the "Wall Street Market" is the second largest marketplace of its kind in the world. In terms of its structure, the platform resembled a legal e-commerce platform on the Internet, such as ebay. This platform is said to have handled 250,000 drug trafficking transactions with a sales volume of more than 41 million euros.
The underground forum "Fraudsters": The LZC itself investigates the operators of this forum. It is suspected that several thousand narcotics transactions have been processed via this platform.
Platform "Flight Vamp 2.0": This marketplace should be the largest Swedish Darknet marketplace for the illegal sale of narcotics. The procedure against the operators is operated by the Swedish investigation authorities. There are 600 sellers and about 10,000 buyers have been active in the marketplace.
Platforms "orangechemicals", "acechemstore" and "lifestylepharma": Through this internet platform, synthetic drugs were distributed throughout Europe in varying quantities and types. In that regard, the investigations are conducted by the Cologne public prosecutor. It should be about sales transactions in the five-digit range.
Attack on Telekom router: Also the large-scale attack on approximately one million Telekom routers in the end of November 2016 was steered over a server in the Cyberbunker.
The case is against 13 accused, twelve men and one woman. The accused are between the ages of 20 and 59. Seven suspects were arrested on arrest warrants. The district court Koblenz has issued at the request of the LZC against six of these men and the woman - four Dutch, one Bulgarian and two Germans - arrest warrants for escape and blackout. In addition, the investigating judge issued 18 search warrants.
Last night, Rhineland-Palatinate regional police and police forces in Hesse and the federal police carried out a search warrant in Germany and neighboring European countries in a coordinated action. A total of several hundred emergency services were involved. Among other things, about 200 servers, written documents, numerous data carriers, mobile phones and a larger sum of cash were secured.
The Attorney General Koblenz and the State Office of Criminal Investigation Rhineland-Palatinate thank all those who have contributed to the investigation and mission success.
For further questions please contact:
State Criminal Police Office Rhineland-Palatinate
press office
Telephone: 06131-65-2392 / -2066
Fax: 06131-65-2125
E-Mail: [email protected]
Attorney General Koblenz
The Attorney General
Tel .: 0261 / 1307-30101
