“Bulletproof” website domain seized in international law enforcement operation

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - Theophani K. Stamos, First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, and Darren B. Cox, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI Washington Field Office, announced today the seizure of the website virtualine.net after it was used to commit and facilitate prolific criminal activity, including the advertisement of sexually explicit images of minors, the intentional disclosure of nonconsensual intimate visual depictions of adults and minors, and international money laundering designed to conceal and promote criminal conduct.

According to court records, the United States obtained court authorization to seize virtualine.net, which is the website for Virtualine, aka Secury, Massgod, Spamhouse, Lanedo, and Omegatech. Virtualine is a "bulletproof" service offering hosting and server solutions with domain name purchasing options. Virtualine advertises its services to criminals on cybercrime forums. For example, in September 2024, Virtualine told a user on Exploit.in: "You can use Virtualine for all illegal/black hat activities (including phis[h]ing, carding, email spam, port scanning and all others) except for child contents and terrorism activities." In March 2026, Virtualine advertised its "additional protection plan," which it offered to its customers after "receiv[ing] an official request from law enforcement agencies." Under this plan, Virtualine would move the customer's criminal infrastructure to "another shell company not affiliated with Virtualine, after which the server is reactivated." As Virtualine advertised to users on the platform HackForums in June 2025, "Virtualine ignored more abuse than your last three therapists."

Despite advertising that it does not allow "child contents" on its server, Virtualine knowingly hosted a website that did so, identified in court records as Vendor 1. Vendor 1 is a criminal online forum that allows users to post and sell access to nude, sexually suggestive, and/or sexually explicit images and videos of minors and adults. Vendor 1 also promotes a hack-for-hire service in which users can pay hackers to access victims' online accounts without their consent and illicitly obtain explicit images and videos. In January 2026, about one month after Virtualine assigned an IP address to Vendor 1, Virtualine began receiving notifications about sexually explicit images and videos of minors on that server. Despite receiving numerous notices from law enforcement in Germany, Canada, and Australia; the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) in the United States; and even from a victim's attorney, Virtualine continued to host Vendor 1's services. Furthermore, Virtualine worked closely with Vendor 1 to create a new website where Vendor 1's clients could upload their illicit content and from which they downloaded it when they made a purchase. Virtualine hosts this new website to this day, and it has already received at least one abuse complaint about sexually explicit images of children found on that website.

Virtualine.net included a number of payment options for Virtualine's customers, including Vendor 1. Virtualine accepted payment through BTC [NO-AML], specific unhosted bitcoin addresses that allowed customers to direct pay without concern their funds would be flagged as illicit. The funds Virtualine's criminal customers paid to Virtualine, some of which can be traced directly to various criminal groups, were received by Virtualine and then further laundered to conceal the origin of the funds.

This case was investigated by the FBI Washington Field Office with significant assistance from Germany's Polizei Hessen, the Netherlands' Politie Midden-Nederland, the U.K.'s National Crime Agency, and private sector partners OverRIPE and Lumen. The Justice Department's Office of International Affairs provided significant assistance.

The government is represented by Assistant United States Attorneys Laura D. Withers and Stefanie A. Schwartz in these matters.