Genesis Market, an online-fraud-facilitation website and marketplace, has today been closed by an international joint effort coordinated by various police forces. Law enforcement agencies around the world took part in synchronized raids, including at locations in the UK and USA. 208 searches have been carried out, beginning at dawn on Tuesday 4 April, and a total of 119 suspected individuals have been arrested. This operation was spearheaded by the FBI in the US and the Dutch National Police. Consequently, users of the genesis.market website have been greeted with a boastful message and infographic on the home and login pages: "Operation Cookie Monster. This website has been seized."

Sophos, a leading software and hardware security vendor, has previously identified genesis.market as: "an invitation-only marketplace" from which buyers can acquire stolen credentials, cookies, and digital fingerprints that are gathered from compromised systems." According to the company's research, the illegal marketplace was also identified as an Initial Access Broker (IAB) - a business that compromises systems and services, steals data, and sells it. Genesis Market has special engagement capabilities in the field of illegally acquiring "credentials, cookies, and digital fingerprints". This stolen data was often sold on under individual lots, but the site also offered a longer term supply of data packages via a subscription service. This would offer the customer an up-to-date information trail, be it the tracking of an individual person or a collective.

An Europol-coordinated international investigation has brought down Darkmarket, the largest operating illegal marketplace in the Dark Web prior to the takedown. The move saw Europol coordinate an international team composed of national security forces working in tandem with Europol's investigators, and culminated with the arrest (by German forces) of a 34-year-old Australian citizen thought to be the head of the operation near the German-Danish border. The partnership between Germany, Australia, Denmark, Moldova, Ukraine, the United Kingdom (the National Crime Agency), and the USA (DEA, FBI, and IRS), coordinated by Europol, thus put to an end an illegal operation that served some 500,000 users.

The DarkMarket featured over 2,400 sellers, and operated at an annual pace of 320,000 transactions - Europol estimates that the marketplace thus moved some €140 million. The website obviously made use of cryptocurrencies to operate, with an estimated flow-through of about 4 650 bitcoin and 12 800 monero being transferred related to the website's operation. Users of DarkMarket mainly trafficked in all kinds of drugs and sold counterfeit money, stolen or counterfeit credit card details, anonymous SIM cards and malware. The market's infrastructure was taken down as well, with the police forces confiscating over 20 servers in Ukraine and Moldova, where the operation was apparently located. Officials said Tuesday that the information gathered from the DarkMarket seizures would hopefully lead to further investigations.