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The FBI has taken control of Virtualine.net, a hosting company accused of helping criminals run illegal websites.
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Prosecutors say the company ignored abuse reports and took Bitcoin payments that hid the source of dirty money.
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The operator denies the claims, while experts link the company’s payment addresses to many kinds of cybercrime.
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has taken over the website address of Virtualine. Officials call it a bulletproof hosting provider. A hosting provider rents out servers that keep websites online. A domain is a website’s web address. Officials accuse Virtualine of helping cybercrime, sharing illegal sexual content, and laundering criminal money through Bitcoin. Laundering means hiding where illegal money came from.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) announced the court-approved seizure of virtualine.net on October 27, 2026. A court-approved seizure means a judge allowed the FBI to take control. Police from Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom joined the operation. Private partners OverRIPE and Lumen Technologies also took part.
Court records say Virtualine also worked under the names Secury, Massgod, Spamhouse, Lanedo, and Omegatech. The seized website now shows a notice about the police action.
Prosecutors Say Virtualine Ignored Warnings About Illegal Content
The Justice Department says Virtualine sold its services to cybercriminals on underground forums. Its ads promoted the service for phishing, payment card fraud, email spam, and port scanning. Phishing uses fake messages to trick people into sharing private details. Spam means unwanted mass emails. Port scanning means checking a network for open entry points.
The company reportedly claimed it banned child sexual abuse material on its servers. Prosecutors disagree with that claim. They say Virtualine knowingly hosted a criminal online forum, which court records call Vendor 1.
Users on that forum allegedly sold and viewed sexual images and videos of minors and adults. The forum also promoted a hacking service. Customers could pay hackers to enter victims’ accounts without permission. The hackers then took private, intimate material.
According to the DoJ, Virtualine began receiving reports about illegal images and videos on this customer’s server in January 2026. Authorities in Germany, Canada, and Australia sent complaints about the illegal content. So did the U.S. National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and a victim’s lawyer.
Prosecutors say Virtualine kept providing service anyway, despite these warnings. They claim it also helped Vendor 1 build a second website for uploading and buying illegal content. The department says Virtualine still hosted that site when it announced the seizure.
In March 2026, Virtualine also advertised an extra protection plan. Court records say the plan promised to move a customer’s criminal setup to an unconnected shell company. A shell company exists mostly on paper. The move would happen after the police sent an official request.
Bitcoin Payments Draw Money Laundering Claims
The Justice Department also says Virtualine used Bitcoin to hide money from criminal customers. Bitcoin is digital money that people send over the internet. According to the department, the company offered a payment choice labeled “BTC [NO-AML].” Customers paid straight to certain private Bitcoin addresses. These addresses are not run by an exchange. Exchanges may run compliance checks, and this option skipped them.
Prosecutors say Virtualine received payments linked to criminal groups. They claim the company then moved the money around to hide where it came from.
Blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis reported separately on the same payment trail, and it published its findings on its own website. Its review found that Virtualine’s Bitcoin activity touched many risky groups. These included ransomware operators, systems that run data-stealing software, cybercrime forums, and illegal marketplaces. The activity also touched scams and phishing addresses. Ransomware locks a victim’s files until they pay. Data-stealing software, known as infostealers, takes private information from devices.
These findings show how Bitcoin payments can link a hosting company to wider criminal networks. Still, contact with suspicious addresses does not prove that every payment or customer joined a crime.
Operator Denies Claims as Investigation Continues
After the seizure, Virtualine’s operator posted an open letter on virtualine.org. An open letter is a public message posted online for anyone to read. The letter denies that the company knowingly hosted child sexual abuse material.
According to the operator, Virtualine acted on relevant complaints within 24 hours. The operator says the company ended its work with Vendor 1 after finding banned material tied to that customer. The operator also told customers that their data remains safe.
Nobody has independently confirmed these claims. The DoJ has also not announced a conviction in its seizure statement. Cybersecurity firm Silent Push says the operation disrupted Virtualine’s systems. It warned that the wider hosting network may not be fully offline.
Reports say the case shows the problems police face. Criminal hosting providers move their setups between networks. They also use cryptocurrency to get paid. Removing a domain can block access to a service. But it does not automatically remove every server, website, or criminal operation tied to it.
Similar challenges arise in other investigations targeting criminal infrastructure, including when Dutch police shut down a criminal host used for dark web activities. The investigation also shows why teamwork between countries matters. Investigators also use blockchain analysis to find systems that allegedly support cybercrime.
