From Dutch police news:
On May 19 and 20, the criminal VPN service First VPN was taken offline in an international operation. This was carried out by the High Tech Crime Team of the National Investigation Unit, under the authority of the National Public Prosecutor’s Office, in cooperation with the French authorities. Before the service went offline, the police had access to the criminal traffic of the service’s users, who mistakenly believed themselves to be safe. The administrator of the service was questioned in Ukraine at the request of the French authorities.
The First VPN service
The VPN service that was taken offline is First VPN. This concerns websites containing ‘ 1vpns’ in the URL. A VPN (Virtual Private Network) ensures that the user’s network traffic is encrypted and their IP address is masked. In this way, an internet provider or network administrator does not know which websites a user visits or where a website visit originates from. You can read exactly how a VPN works here .
The service First VPN was considered criminal because it specifically targeted cybercriminals and offered them the opportunity to conceal their identities. The service involved in this investigation advertised primarily on cybercriminal forums known to the police, thereby explicitly approaching cybercriminals as potential customers.
Read more at Politie.
