RaidForums was an English-language black hat hacking internet forum founded in 2015. The website facilitated the discussion of a variety of hacking topics and was a notable distributor of various data breaches, hacking tools, and pornography until its closure and seizure by law enforcement authorities in 2022.[1] The website was monetized via advertisements and through a tiered membership program where members with higher tiers would receive elevated access to the forum and its contents.[2][3]
RaidForums began in 2015 as a platform for Twitch raiders.[4]
The domain and its contents were seized by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on April 12, 2022, after a month of downtime, in collaboration with the United States Secret Service, the United States Department of Justice, and a variety of other national and international law enforcement agencies.[1]
The website was allegedly founded in 2015 by a then 14-year-old Portuguese national, Diogo Santos Coelho, under the screen name "Omnipotent", who was arrested on January 31, 2022, in the United Kingdom.[5] His arrest occurred pending several years of investigation after several of his devices were searched under warrant at the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in June 2018, suggesting he was the owner and primary administrator "Omnipotent". According to hackread.com, an administrator under the screen name "Jaw" & "souls" announced the seizure officially on the forum's public Telegram channel, and redirected subscribers of the channel to RaidForums' backup domain rf.to [2]
At the time of its closure in 2022, the forum had over 530,000 registered users and was one of the most prolific and easily accessible clearnet illicit hacking forums.[2]
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