Milwaukee FBI leads operation to dismantle illicit online market
MILWAUKEE - Milwaukee FBI agents led a worldwide operation to dismantle an online criminal marketplace. They succeeded by going after the market’s users – and discovered some of them in Wisconsin.
The Genesis Market was a market unlike any you’ve likely seen. What its customers wanted couldn’t be bought in any ordinary store.
In the Genesis Market, shoppers sifted through packages of stolen data. They bought the passwords and usernames for millions of email, social media and banking accounts. Customers could only step foot into the Genesis Market on the dark web.
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Contact 6 sat down with Amanda Knutson, supervisory agent in the Milwaukee FBI Field Office, to talk about the Genesis Market about the data packages it sold.
"A user of the Genesis Market could purchase the package of your computer that has all of your logins and your digital fingerprint for as little as $4," said Knutson.
The FBI dubbed its dismantling of the market Operation Cookie Monster. The FBI says they successfully seized 11 domain names used to support the Genesis Market’s infrastructure.
"This Milwaukee field office, this was our investigation," said Knutson. "It made a big dent in the sense that there were about 80 million stolen login credentials and about 1.5 million victims."
The Genesis market was basically an illicit online store for cybercriminals around the world. Their purchases allowed them to emulate victim computers and commit fraud.
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"Many times what happens is you close one (illicit market) and the same type of business can pretty much just move elsewhere," said Debbie Perouli, assistant professor of computer science at Marquette University.
Perioli said these illegal markets pop up on websites not visible on the public internet.
"You cannot search for them in the common search engines," said Perouli. "Most of the time you’re required to use specific software to browse through them."
Newly unsealed search warrants filed in the Eastern District of Wisconsin detail how Operation Cookie Monster targeted suspected users last spring. Among them was a man in a Milwaukee apartment building. The warrant said agents believed the man wanted "victim accounts that had logins for Wells Fargo, Landmark, Chase, Paypal and Venmo."
In Cudahy, another search warrant was filed in August 2022 at a redacted address. Agents believed a user bought packages with "281 usernames and passwords … for Apple, Amazon, Paypal and other social media."
The warrants offer a small glimpse into a massive, worldwide operation.
"We partnered with about 16 other countries and on a single day we executed arrests, searches and interviews with these users all at the same time," said Knutson.
Not all the suspected users faced criminal charges. Knutson said what’s more important is the market was discredited.
"Because what Genesis Market promised its users is that it would keep their users' information safe from law enforcement," said Knutson.
The operation successfully took the sensitive information of millions of victims off the market’s digital shelves.
The FBI said the Genesis Market had victims in all 50 states. It’s unclear whether the suspected users in Milwaukee County will face criminal charges.
Victim credentials obtained through the investigation were provided to the website, Have I Been Pawned, a resource that allow people to check whether their credentials are compromised. Anyone with compromised information should charge their passwords or modify their authentication credentials.
