Overview
- French and Dutch judicial authorities led a multinational operation that dismantled First VPN during coordinated actions carried out on Tuesday May 19 and into Wednesday May 20.
- Investigators seized 33 servers in several European countries and questioned the service’s principal administrator in Ukraine at the request of a French investigating judge.
- Police teams compiled and distributed 83 intelligence files on 506 users to partner nations to support ongoing cybercrime probes.
- First VPN, operating since 2014, was promoted on cybercriminal forums, may have had more than 5,000 accounts, and was tied to investigations of ransomware families such as Phobos.
- A Paris judicial inquiry opened in March 2022 charges the service with complicity in fraudulent access and organized extortion and authorities say prosecutions and cross‑border follow‑up investigations will continue.