RaidForums taken down

The RaidForums hacking forum has been taken offline and its founder indicted as part of an international effort to target the popular hacking site.

RaidForums was not a darknet site, it offered a variety of illegal services, it was best known for trading in stolen credentials.

Raidforums.com, along with Raid.ws and Raid.lol domains used by the site, were seized by the U.S. Department of Justice with the image above now appearing where the forum once resided. Diogo Santos Coelho of Portugal, founder of Raid Forums was arrested in the U.K. on Jan. 31 and now faces extradition to the U.S.

Coelho is facing six counts for his operation of RaidForums, including conspiracy, access device fraud and aggravated identify theft. It’s alleged that Coelho both personally sold stolen data on the platform and directly facilitated illicit transactions by operating a fee-based “Official Middleman” service.

The Justice Department claims that the takedown will prevent RaidForums members from using the platform to traffic in data stolen from corporations, universities, and governmental entities in the US and elsewhere. However, every takedown like this is typically a game of Whac-A-Mole: Take one website down and three others will take their place.