Law Enforcement Officers Closed the Underground WT1SHOP Marketplace That Sold Bank Cards and Credentials

Law enforcement agencies have completed an international operation, as a result of which control over the website and domains of the underground marketplace WT1SHOP was seized. This marketplace sold stolen bank cards, documents, and millions of credentials.

WT1SHOP was one of the largest marketplaces for trading credentials and personal data, and criminals often scooped logins and passwords for hacking accounts, bank cards from which they later made purchases, as well as identity cards necessary for various frauds, including complete identity theft. As a rule, WT1SHOP was advertised on Russian-language hacker forums and subreddits dedicated to fraud and cybercrime.

As the US Department of Justice has now reported, the Portuguese authorities seized the WT1SHOP website, and US law enforcement officers confiscated four marketplace domains: wt1shop.net, wt1store.cc, wt1store.com and wt1store.net. Other domains used by WT1SHOP (wt1store.biz, wt1store.me, wt1store.xyz and wt1store.org) do not appear to have been affected, but since the site has been taken over by the authorities, visiting any of these addresses will no longer grant access to the marketplace.

The Maryland District Attorney’s office and the FBI say the site traded the personal information of millions of users, including stolen credentials, bank account information, bank cards, and scans of identification documents, including passports and driver’s licenses.

As of June 2020, sales through WT1SHOP were estimated to be worth $4 million in bitcoin, according to Dutch police estimates.