Kirill Victorovich Firsov, the declared possessor of Russian-based anonymous market place Deer.io, was arrested on March 7 past Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) officials at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York.

Court documents allege that Firsov is the mastermind backside Deer.io —  a site that offered darknet-style services in exchange for Bitcoin on the normal web. The FBI estimates it has facilitated more than $17 meg worth of sales.

Firsov will exist arraigned in New York court after this week, where he is expected to face charges for trafficking stolen information, and aiding and abetting trafficking.

Deer.io hosted $17 one thousand thousand in black market sales since 2022

Since 2022, Deer.io has hosted 24,000 active stores specializing in stolen information, offering a simple 'turn-key' solution for black-market entrepreneurs.

Vendors would pay roughly 800 Russian rubles ($12.50) to operate on Deer.io each calendar month, with hosting offered on private Russian servers out of the reach of U.S. government. Fees were paid to Firsov in Bitcoin (BTC) or via the Russian payments platform WebMoney.

Of the 250 Deer.io shops reviewed past the FBI so far, not a single business organisation dealt in legitimate wares. Items for sale on the platform included user passwords, fake social media accounts and sensitive identity data such as birth certificates and revenue enhancement returns.

Troves of personal information sold openly on Deer

During its investigations, the FBI made several purchases using the Deer platform including 999 documents containing Personally-Identifying Information (PII) from one vendor for $170 in Bitcoin, and $522 in Bitcoin for a stash of ii,650 documents from another.

For $twenty worth of crypto, the FBI was able to selection up the usernames and passwords for i,100 compromised gaming accounts.

Deer.io rose to prominence as an hole-and-corner marketplace specializing in stolen appurtenances during 2022 after infamous hacker Tessa88 used the platform to sell sensitive data hacked from social media networks LinkedIn and MySpace.