The FBI says it seized the website of Virtualine, a bulletproof hosting service that allegedly supported criminal activity, including laundering stolen and extorted cryptocurrency. The operation involved German and Dutch authorities and private companies.
Police raided a data center in Limburg and seized dozens of physical servers that hosted hundreds of virtual servers. Authorities said they gained access to information about more than 3,000 Virtualine customers. Dutch police said they are taking follow-up action toward those users.
The US Department of Justice said Virtualine advertised its services on cybercrime forums for illegal activities. It also said the service introduced an “additional protection plan” in March 2026, offering customers facing takedown requests a new shell company and reactivation of their server.
According to the DOJ, Virtualine continued hosting a client after law enforcement agencies in Germany, Canada, and Australia warned it about the client’s forum, which allowed users to post and sell access to sexually explicit images and videos involving minors and adults. The DOJ also said the forum promoted a hack-for-hire service.
Chainalysis said Virtualine’s Bitcoin wallet received funds linked to ransomware operations, infostealers, and cybercrime forums, and that the company laundered proceeds to conceal their origin. No arrests had been made, according to the report. BleepingComputer described the service as partially online, with low routing visibility for its network prefixes.
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