Operation Alice Takes Down 370,000+ Dark Web Sites

A Europol-backed operation has led to the dismantling of over 373,000 dark web sites advertising CSAM and cybercrime as a service. The German-led Operation Alice ran from 9 March to 19 March 2026 and initially targeted “Alice with Violence CP” — a fraudulent platform run by a Chinese national which swindled would-be CSAM and CaaS customers into paying for non-existent services.

The administrator, a 35-year-old man living in China, is believed to have made over €345,000 in profits from around 10,000 customers worldwide who were tricked into buying the content and services he advertised, according to Europol. The operation involved up to 287 servers, with 105 located in Germany now seized, and over 373,000 .onion sites were run; from February 2020 to July 2025 the platform advertised CSAM on more than 90,000 onion domains.

Twenty-two countries took part in the operation, and the authorities unmasked identities of 440 customers, with ongoing investigations into over 100 individuals, according to the article.