International Operation Seizes Bulletproof Hosting Site Virtualine.net: DOJ Alleges Cybercrime Hosting, Exploitation Imagery and Money Laundering
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia and the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced on October 27 the court-authorized seizure of virtualine.net, the website of the offshore "bulletproof hosting" provider Virtualine, in an international law enforcement operation. The Justice Department said the website was seized after being used for prolific criminal activity, including advertising sexually explicit images of minors, disclosure of nonconsensual intimate visual depictions, and international money laundering.
According to Chainalysis, an analytics partner in the operation, Virtualine openly solicited clients from the cybercrime community on forums such as Exploit.in, and its infrastructure allegedly hosted ransomware control servers, information stealers, phishing operations and illegal markets. In March 2026 it launched an "Extra Protection Plan" that moved client infrastructure to unrelated shell companies and relaunched it when law enforcement requests arrived. Chainalysis said the company accepted payments through unhosted Bitcoin wallet addresses and laundered the funds, and that its addresses were directly linked to ransomware operators and cybercrime forums.
The FBI's Washington Field Office took part in the seizure, with assistance from police forces in multiple countries and private-sector contributors including Chainalysis and OverRIPE. So-called bulletproof hosts market themselves on ignoring abuse complaints and helping clients evade law enforcement, and are regarded as a key infrastructure layer for ransomware and phishing crime.
The allegations remain accusations by law enforcement and prosecutors. Analysis by security firm Silent Push records that Virtualine has publicly disputed the allegations and said its data was safe, and that its network was not fully offline after the seizure. Further developments await court proceedings and additional official announcements.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 位于华盛顿的联邦调查局总部胡佛大楼。Ajay Suresh 摄，CC BY 2.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / The J. Edgar Hoover Building, FBI headquarters in Washington. Photo by Ajay Suresh, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
