Gate News Report, on March 13, the European Police Organization (Europol) and the U.S. Department of Justice announced the takedown of a malicious proxy service network called “SocksEscort” and the seizure of $3.5 million in cryptocurrency related to the case. The network infected over 369,000 routers and IoT devices across 163 countries, providing more than 35,000 proxies to users in recent years. During the operation, 34 domains and 23 servers across seven countries were seized, and the payment platforms associated with the service are estimated to have received over $5.7 million in cryptocurrency. The investigation began in June 2025 and found that the infected devices were mainly used to facilitate crimes such as ransomware and DDoS attacks. The U.S. Department of Justice charged that the criminals used the proxy service to hide their locations and carry out frauds including bank and crypto account takeovers, with victims losing over $1 million in a case involving a client of a New York-based crypto exchange.
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