Kosovo Police Shuts Down Rydox Cybercrime Marketplace and Arrests Admins
Published on December 13, 2024
- Rydox marketplace, launched in 2016, was dedicated to selling PII information.
- Three Rydox admins were arrested and are now facing multiple charges.
- The marketplace has been shut down, and its servers have been seized in Malaysia.
Three Kosovo nationals were arrested by Kosovo law enforcement and Albania’s Special Anti-Corruption Body (SPAK), believed to be responsible for Rydox, a major cybercrime marketplace. Rydox, which has been shut down, was dedicated to selling personal information and tools for carrying out cybercrime and fraud.
The arrested individuals are Ardit Kutleshi and Jetmir Kutleshi, who are currently awaiting extradition to the United States, per an indictment unsealed in the Western District of Pennsylvania. They face several charges related to their involvement with Rydox, including two counts of identity theft, one count of conspiracy to commit identity theft, one count of aggravated identity theft, one count of access device fraud, and one count of money laundering.
A third administrator, Kosovo national Shpend Sokoli, was arrested in Albania, where he’s waiting to be charged and prosecuted.
Per the indictment, the Rydox marketplace launched in 2016 and conducted over 7,600 sales over the years. It’s believed that the marketplace generated at least $230,000 in revenue and offered 321,000+ cybercrime products to 18,000+ users, including stolen personally identifiable information such as names, addresses, social security numbers, credit card information, scam pages, spamming tutorials, and more.
Users who registered on Rydox were asked to deposit a sum of cryptocurrency into their account before making a purchase via Perfect Money, Ethereum, Litecoin, Bitcoin, Monero, Ripple, Tron, or Verge payments. Rydex later controlled this wallet. In addition, the marketplace charged a one-time fee, ranging from $200 to $500 to those who wished to become authorized sellers.
As part of the operation, the Rydex[.]cc domain was seized and shut down in Kuala Lumpur with the assistance of the Royal Malaysian Police. This operation was supported by the FBI’s Pittsburgh Office, Albania’s National Bureau of Investigation (BKH), the Albanian Directorate of Cybercrime Investigation, the Kosovo Special Prosecutor’s Office, and the Kosovo Police.
In other recent news, Europol shut down Manson Market, another major cybercrime marketplace selling PII data. Two main suspects behind Manson Market were arrested in Germany.
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