A Queensland man has been arrested over his involvement in the world’s largest dark web marketplace. 

A 34-year-old Queensland man has been arrested by German police near the German border with Denmark, accused of being the administrator of DarkMarket.

The site allowed buyers and sellers of stolen identities and credit card data to meet and conduct criminal enterprise in an entrepreneurial, peer-reviewed environment, and boasted 2,500 vendors and half a million users at its peak. Authorities say it has now been shut down. 

German authorities alerted an AFP cybercrime unit Operation Futurist to the arrest, triggering a series of local raids. 

A range of equipment was seized, including a laptop, four mobile phones, six USB thumb drives, five hard drives, SIM cards and bank cards.

Cybercrime Operations and Digital Forensic Teams are reviewing the evidence and say they may still make arrests.

AFP Southern Command Acting Commander of Investigations, Jayne Crossling, said Australian criminals are likely to have been buying illicit items from DarkMarket.

“Some of these items could have been used or acquired by Australians in Australia,” she said.

“The job of the AFP and its partner agencies is to keep Australians safe.

“If police knew there was criminal activity occurring in geographic location, action would be taken.

“There is no difference with the dark web, although the anonymising features of the dark web makes it harder for law enforcement to identify perpetrators, who commit abhorrent crimes.”