Eight Bulletproof Hosting Operators Sentenced to Prison in Germany

A court in Trier, Germany, has sentenced eight individuals who operated a darknet web hub to prison. The criminals provided servers for online drug trafficking, contract killings, money laundering, and the distribution of child pornography.

The group was charged with assisting criminals in carrying out approximately 249,000 transactions using servers located in a former NATO bunker in a small village in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

According to the judge, the evidence showed that the defendants ran a “bulletproof hosting” service, supplying criminals with servers that were inaccessible to law enforcement. Specifically, the accused provided hosting for underground marketplaces such as Wall Street Market and Fraudsters. The servers were shut down in September 2019 after a five-year investigation.

Details of the Trial and Sentencing

The trial of the accused—seven men and one woman—lasted one year. The group’s leader, a 62-year-old Dutch citizen, received a prison sentence of five years and six months. Six others were sentenced to terms ranging from two years and four months to four years and three months. One defendant received a one-year suspended sentence.

This verdict marks the conclusion of the longest cybercrime trial in Germany, according to Deutsche Welle. For the first time, the focus of the trial was not on sellers of illegal goods and services on the darknet, but on those who make such trade possible—the web hosting operators.

Police Operation and Bunker Details

The server takedown in September 2019 involved hundreds of police officers, including Germany’s elite GSG 9 police unit. Law enforcement managed to enter the former NATO bunker, which covered 5,000 square meters, featured iron doors, and had five underground levels. The bunker is located on a 1.3-hectare property, surrounded by a fence and protected by surveillance cameras.