Interpol has cleaned up the Dark Web. In an international police operation, Interpol deleted 22,000 IP addresses that were used for criminal activities.

Interpol communicates in a press release about Operation Synergia II, a global cleanup operation to neutralize criminal IP addresses. The operation was certainly not fruitless: more than 22,000 IP addresses that Interpol said were used for criminal activities were taken offline as part of the operation. In addition, 41 people were arrested.

The campaign took place from April to the end of August. Interpol received help from some major security industry players in identifying malicious IP addresses. Trend Micro and Kasperksy, among others, helped Interpol identify 30,000 suspicious IP addresses. Of these, 22,000 were shot down. 59 servers and 43 electronic devices belonging to the suspects were seized for further investigation.

Cybercrime is a global problem that requires a global approach, emphasizes Interpol in the press release. Interpol worked with national police forces around the world, from Estonia to Mongolia, Hong Kong and Madagascar.

Fighting cybercrime is a never-ending game of cat and mouse, but recently the cats managed to catch a few mice. The Belgian Federal Police, in collaboration with the Dutch police and the American FBI, recently collected some harmful specimens Infostealer offline.