The FBI has seized LeakBase, a cybercrime forum used by more than 142,000 members to buy and sell stolen data, hacking tools, and other illicit services. The takedown, which unfolded on March 3 and 4, 2026, was part of an international law enforcement operation coordinated by Europol and codenamed “Operation Leak,” involving agencies from 14 countries.
Agents seized two of LeakBase’s domains and replaced them with law enforcement banners. The forum’s primary domain, leakbase[.]la, now displays a notice from the FBI stating the site was taken down as part of an international operation. Its nameservers have been switched to ns1.fbi.seized.gov and ns2.fbi.seized.gov, the standard infrastructure the FBI uses when seizing online properties.
What Was Captured
The seizure banner makes clear that authorities collected far more than access to the site itself. “All forum content including users’ accounts, posts, credit details, private messages and IP logs have been secured and preserved for evidentiary purposes,” the notice reads. Members who previously assumed anonymity on the platform now face the prospect of their activity records being used in future prosecutions.
Europol confirmed that around 100 enforcement actions were conducted worldwide during the operation, including measures taken against 37 of the forum’s most active users. Officers executed search warrants, made arrests, and conducted “knock-and-talk” interventions across the United States, Australia, Belgium, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, and the United Kingdom.
LeakBase’s History
LeakBase launched in 2021 as a project backed by the ARES threat group. It grew significantly after the closure of the Breached hacker forum, eventually attracting a user base exceeding 142,000 members. The platform was free to join and offered access to leaked databases, a marketplace for exploits and cybercrime services, an escrow payment system, and community spaces covering programming, social engineering, cryptography, and operational security guides.
The forum’s structure made it a broad-purpose criminal marketplace rather than a single-focus operation, which likely contributed to its rapid growth following its predecessor platforms’ shutdowns.
More Read
A Pattern of Takedowns
The LeakBase seizure fits into a longer sequence of law enforcement actions targeting major cybercrime forums. RaidForums was disrupted in 2022, BreachForums was taken down in 2023, and the founder of BreachForums was convicted and sentenced in 2025. Each successive forum attracted users displaced by the previous takedown, a cycle that Operation Leak appears designed to interrupt more aggressively.
Europol noted the operation has now entered a “prevention phase” aimed at deterring further criminal activity and raising awareness of the consequences of participating in cybercrime forums. The scale of data collected from LeakBase, covering private communications, IP addresses, and transaction records, gives investigators substantial material to work with in the months ahead.
Photo by Markus Winkler on Pexels
This article is a curated summary based on third-party sources. Source: Read the original article
