French Traditions Dismantle New Illegal Marketplace

Description of French Traditions Dismantle New Illegal Marketplace

French customs announced on Friday that they had put an end to the activities of the "Parallel World" site, which was acting as an illegal market place on Tor. This is the third time that the customs services have managed to close this type of marketplace.
Never two without three: the National Directorate of Intelligence and Customs Investigations (DNRED) announced last Friday that it had closed the Le Monde Parallele site, described as an illegal marketplace on Tor "offering various products and services for sale illicit (narcotics, false documents, weapons, carding, etc.)”
In a statement, the Ministry of the Economy and Finance said that the two administrators of the platform were arrested, following two home visits in Paris and in the Metz region on May 17. These aimed to identify the administrators of the platform. The press release also specifies that this operation is the result of an investigation lasting several months, which mobilized around thirty agents. “In addition to various computer equipment, these operations made it possible to dismantle this platform and seize false documents, bank cards and prepaid cards, several thousand Euros in crypto currency, and evidence of their illegal activities on the site. "
Three stripes shot
The authorities seized the domain name of the site, which now displays an image indicating that "the forum was closed by the Central Office for the Fight against Crime related to Information and Communication Technologies after authorization from the section D3 of the TJ of Paris. »Section J3 of the Paris TJ designates the section of the prosecution specializing in cybercrime, formerly known as section F1 and which has national jurisdiction over crimes and offenses linked to cybercrime.
The page also displays the logos of OCRIEST (Central Office for the Suppression of Irregular Immigration and the Employment of Untitled Foreigners) and DNRED. The authorities also seem to have wanted to taunt the users of the platform by adding an additional mention: "LMP: The Pawned World". "Pwned" is a term used frequently in IT and security to refer to a person who has been ripped off, or a compromised system. "Pawned" could therefore refer here directly to this term in computer jargon.
This is the third time that the French authorities have announced the dismantling of this type of sites hosted in France. The first such operation allowed the authorities to dismantle the BlackHand platform (also known as the Black Hand) in 2018, and a second operation ended the activities of the French Deep Web site. In both cases, several arrests took place following the seizures of the sites concerned, and administrators as well as sellers using these platforms to monetize their services are now awaiting trial.