European law enforcement forces pull the plug on this free VPN in massive cybercrime crackdown —here's all we know
European law enforcement agencies have successfully dismantled a VPN service known as 'First VPN,' which was allegedly used by cybercriminals for illegal activities. The operation, coordinated by Europol and Eurojust, resulted in the seizure of 33 servers and the shutdown of key domain names. This crackdown is seen as a significant victory in the fight against cybercrime, exposing many criminals who relied on the service for anonymity.
- ▪Authorities from seven countries participated in the takedown of 'First VPN.'
- ▪The VPN was marketed as a safe haven for ransomware operators and other cybercriminals.
- ▪The operation, dubbed 'Operation Saffron,' led to the exposure of thousands of cybercriminals.
- ▪'First VPN' was heavily embedded in major cybercrime investigations supported by Europol.
- ▪Users of the service have been notified by police that their identities have been compromised.
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Story provenance
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Record
| Original publisher | TechRadar |
| Canonical URL | https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-security/european-law-enforcement-forces-pull-the-plug-on-this-free-vpn-in-massive-cybercrime-crackdown-heres-all-we-know |
| Publication time | Thu, 21 May 2026 13:29:14 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-21T13:36:11.041Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-21T13:36:11.041Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | R_PDSHM7LkH7 |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
Rights status (four layers)
WeSearch handling by dimension
| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
VPN VPN Privacy & Security European law enforcement forces pull the plug on this free VPN in massive cybercrime crackdown —here's all we know News By Rene Millman published 21 May 2026 A joint operation led by Europol and Eurojust has targeted First VPN, taking 33 servers offline and seizing key domain names When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. (Image credit: Photo by Fred TANNEAU / AFP via Getty Images) Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter Authorities from seven countries took down 'First VPN,' seizing 33 serversThe VPN was heavily marketed as a safe haven for…
Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at TechRadar.
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