Aug 29, 2025Ravie LakshmananCryptocurrency / Cybercrime
Authorities from the Netherlands and america have introduced the dismantling of a bootleg market referred to as VerifTools that peddled fraudulent identification paperwork to cybercriminals the world over.
To that finish, two market domains (verif[.]instruments and veriftools[.]internet) and one weblog have been taken down, redirecting web site guests to a splash web page stating the motion was undertaken by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) pursuant to a warrant issued by a United States District Courtroom. The servers have been seized in Amsterdam.
Nevertheless, a Telegram message posted by operators on August 28, 2025, exhibits that they’ve already launched the service on the area “veriftools[.]com.” The area was created on December 10, 2018, per DomainTools. It is at the moment not recognized who the directors of the platform are.
“The operators of VerifTools produced and offered counterfeit driver’s licenses, passports, and different identification paperwork that could possibly be used to bypass identification verification techniques and acquire unauthorized entry to on-line accounts,” the U.S. Division of Justice (DoJ) mentioned Thursday.
The DoJ mentioned the FBI started investigating the service in 2022 after it found a felony operation to leverage stolen identities to entry cryptocurrency accounts. The probe revealed that the unlawful platform was getting used to generate counterfeit identification paperwork for all 50 states of the U.S., in addition to different overseas international locations, for as little as $9.
An equal of roughly $6.4 million of illicit proceeds has been linked to the VerifTools market, the FBI mentioned.
On the VerifTools web site, the operators argue believable deniability by stating that: “Authorized utilization of the service is your duty. By utilizing the service, you will need to concentrate on the native, state, and federal legal guidelines in your jurisdiction and take sole duty to your actions.”
Following the takedown, a Reddit consumer by the title Powda_reaper claimed that the location house owners messaged them saying “the web site is at the moment down as a result of main points” and that they have been bringing the location again up by August 29, whereas reassuring them that “Your funds are secure.”
“The web shouldn’t be a refuge for criminals. Should you construct or promote instruments that permit offenders impersonate victims, you might be a part of the crime,” mentioned Appearing U.S. Lawyer Ryan Ellison. “We’ll use each lawful instrument to disrupt your enterprise, take the revenue out of it, and produce you to justice. Nobody operation is greater than us collectively.”
The Dutch Nationwide Police, in a coordinated assertion, described VerifTools as one of many largest suppliers of false identification paperwork. Along with two bodily servers, greater than 21 digital servers have been confiscated.
The officers additionally famous that the web site’s complete infrastructure on the servers has been secured and copied for subsequent evaluation. Within the Netherlands, forgery, false proof of identification, and deploying counterfeit cost devices every carry a most jail sentence of six years.
“Many corporations and companies use so-called Know Your Buyer verification (KYC), which frequently requires solely a picture of an ID. By utilizing VerifTools, that KYC management could possibly be bypassed,” the Politie mentioned. “Criminals gratefully use platforms similar to VerifTools, as a result of they’ll commit their fraud with the created paperwork, similar to financial institution helpdesk fraud and phishing.”
