FBI and Dutch Police Take Down Major Fake ID Marketplace
The FBI and Dutch police have conducted a joint operation that shut down VerifTools, a major online marketplace specializing in the sale of forged documents. The servers supporting the platform were seized in Amsterdam, and the domain veriftools.net now displays a banner announcing its takedown.
VerifTools was regarded as a significant player in the underground market: it offered counterfeit driver’s licenses and passports used to bypass identity verification systems, perpetrate banking fraud, conduct phishing schemes, fraudulently obtain social benefits, evade criminal prosecution, and register anonymously on services subject to KYC requirements. Another notable group of buyers included teenagers seeking to circumvent age restrictions.
According to the U.S. investigation, launched in August 2022, the site offered forged IDs from all 50 U.S. states and several foreign countries, priced from as little as nine dollars, with payment accepted in cryptocurrency. The probe began after investigators uncovered a scheme in which stolen personal data was used to access cryptocurrency accounts.
Dutch police estimate VerifTools’ turnover at no less than €1.3 million, while the FBI links the marketplace to illegal revenue of approximately $6.4 million. Obtaining a document required only the simplest steps: uploading a photo, entering the necessary details, and receiving an automatically generated counterfeit ID.
Authorities seized two physical and twenty-one virtual servers. The entire infrastructure was copied and handed over to investigators. The administrators of VerifTools remain unidentified, but law enforcement expects that forensic analysis of the seized data may reveal the organizers. The Dutch prosecutor’s office has stated that future arrests are not ruled out.
Should prosecutions follow, users of forged documents could face up to six years of imprisonment. Authorities stress that VerifTools is yet another example of how low-barrier online platforms have made access to counterfeit identification almost as effortless as uploading a picture to a social network.
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