Data centers in the Hague and Zoetermeer in the Netherlands have been raided, with some 250 servers seized as part of a cybercrime investigation.

A notice published by the police service in the Netherlands stated that a “rogue hosting company” was linked to some 80 investigations into cybercrimes both in the country and abroad since 2022. The hoster advertises itself as a bulletproof hosting provider, according to the police, and claims to offer complete anonymity to users.

The raid took place on November 12, and some 250 physical servers were seized, bringing thousands of virtual servers offline.

The servers were reportedly being used for criminal activities that “could include” ransomware attacks, botnets, phishing scams, or the distribution of child pornography. The exact uses were not named by the police.

The investigation remains ongoing, with the police currently prioritizing the analysis of data on the servers.

The data centers in question were not named. DataCenterMap lists just one facility in Zoetermeer, operated by ColoCenter. DCD has contacted ColoCenter to ask if it was one of the facilities raided. Operators in The Hague include Netrouting, Greenhouse Datacenters, and Cellnex.

Update -

ColoCenter has confirmed that its data center was raided. The provider said that the servers belonged to a customer which was using its own network, so the provider had no knowledge of how they were being used.

Original story resumes -

The raid follows another recent development in which the Dutch police assisted Europol and Eurojust with the taking down of 83 servers in the Netherlands under “Operation Endgame.” The operation included searching nine data centers in the Netherlands, as well as one in Germany and one in Greece. The operation had been ongoing since 2022.

In February of this year, police in the Netherlands seized 127 servers being used by Zservers, a bulletproof hosting service. The raid took place at the Paul van Vlissingenstraat data center in Amsterdam, and was the result of a “long-term digital investigation” into the hosting provider after it was linked to the LockBit ransomware operation.

Zservers had been subjected to sanctions from the US, UK, and Australia due to its association with criminal activity.

Other data center raids to occur this year include a July search of a UK data center as part of an investigation into an illegal streaming service, an Iron Mountain facility in India, and an ICE raid at a crypto facility in Texas.