Interpol 2.0: How global anti-carding alliances created a network where even the dark web can't hide.

[Professor]

International Law Enforcement Cooperation to Combat Carding: From Europol to Joint Cyber Operations​

The fight against carding has long ceased to be the preserve of national police forces. By 2026, it has become a highly integrated, technologically advanced ecosystem of international cooperation, where data exchange and joint operations have become routine, not the exception. A carder who thinks borders are protection is living in the 2010s. Today, he is being sought by a consortium of agencies whose servers exchange information faster than he can change proxies.

Architecture of Global Cooperation: Who, with Whom, and How​

1. Permanent multilateral platforms (Organizational spine):

• Europol (Europol) — the European Cybercrime Centre (EC3): A key hub for the EU. It maintains the J-CAT (Joint Cybercrime Action Taskforce) databases on cybercriminals, tools, and TTPs (tactics, techniques, and procedures). It coordinates Joint Action Days (Joint Action Days) — simultaneous raids in dozens of countries.
• Interpol (Interpol) - Cybercrime Unit: Global Reach. Manages the 24/7 I-Pol system for the secure exchange of police information and the Digital Forensics Lab. Launches global operations (e.g., Operation HAECHI against financial cyberfraud).
• The G7 24/7 Network: Created under the Budapest Convention, these are direct contact points in each participating country, obligated to respond to requests for assistance in investigating cybercrimes within hours, not months. A carder in Nigeria attacking a German bank through a server in the US poses a threat to three nodes of this network simultaneously.

2. Specialized Alliances and Task Forces (Targeted Strikes):

• J-CAT (Europol): Temporary teams of the best specialists from EU countries for targeted operations against specific groups.
• Five Eyes Alliance (FVEY), Nine Eyes, and Fourteen Eyes: Sharing signals intelligence (SIGINT) between intelligence agencies (NSA, GCHQ, etc.). Tracking darknet communications, monitoring crypto exchanges.
• Joint cyber operations (Cyber Ops): This is no longer simply information sharing, but the joint implementation of active measures. For example, infiltrating a group with an agent, a controlled hack of its infrastructure to collect evidence, or even taking down its servers simultaneously in several countries.

3. Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) – The Power of Enterprise Data:

• Partnerships with Big Tech: Europol with Telegram, Meta, and Google. These companies provide data upon request (through legal channels) and actively participate in identifying malicious activity on their platforms.
• Partnerships with the financial sector: Exchanges with SWIFT, banks, and crypto exchanges (Chainalysis, TRM Labs). Obtaining data on suspicious transactions, identifying wallets, and freezing funds in accounts in another country based on a court order.
• Partnerships with retailers and anti-fraud companies: Forter, Riskified, and banking associations share data with law enforcement on new fraud schemes, IP addresses, and digital fingerprints.

How the mechanism works in a real-life Operation 2026: An example of "Operation Cardfall"​

1. Detection (Germany): The German Federal Police (BKA), through an anti-fraud partner, has identified a cluster of fraudulent orders sent to drop addresses in Berlin. Analysis shows links to IP addresses in Ukraine and crypto wallets in Russia.
2. Network activation (Europol): BKA sends a request to Europol EC3. There, analysts find matches: the same scheme was used in attacks on France and Poland, and the IP address appears in the J-CAT database for the "Black ATM" group.
3. Joint Task Force: Europol is establishing a virtual task force (VOT) with officers from Germany, Ukraine, Poland, and France. A secure platform is being used for real-time communication.
4. Evidence Collection (Multi-Country):
   • Ukraine (upon request via "Network 24/7"): Monitors the physical address associated with the IP, receiving data from the Internet provider.
   • France: Interrogation of a detained drug mule, seizure of his phone, extraction of Telegram chats.
   • Germany/Poland: Analysis of goods seized from dropshipping sites, linking serial numbers to orders.
   • Europol: Crypto analysts from the European Cryptocurrency Centre are tracking the chain of Bitcoin transfers, linking the wallets of droplets to the wallets of the organizers.
5. Synchronized arrests (Take-Down Day): On a Europol alert, simultaneous searches and arrests are carried out on the same day in Kyiv (organizers), Berlin and Warsaw (money mules), and Paris (cash-out operator). Servers, computers, and crypto wallets are seized.
6. Prosecution: The evidence collected is consolidated by Europol into a single "evidence package", translated into the required languages and formatted in accordance with the legal regulations of all participating countries, to facilitate extradition and trial.

The technologies that made it possible​

• Secure Information Exchange (SIEx): Secure Slack-like platforms for police officers, allowing them to share documents, chats, and images in real time.
• Digital Fact Findings (DFL): Storage and analysis of seized malware samples, full-seal databases, and server logic.
• Blockchain analysis tools (e.g. Europol's Chainalysis services): Automatic crypto flow tracking, wallet clustering, exchanger identification.
• AI for Big Data Analysis: Finding connections between terabytes of data from different cases: matching nicknames, phone numbers, patterns in code, and writing styles in chats.

Weaknesses and Challenges (Where Else Can You Hide?)​

1. Rogue jurisdictions: Countries unwilling to cooperate (some countries in the CIS, Asia, and the Middle East). Carding groups base their infrastructure and "cores" there.
2. Conflict Zones: Regions where there is no state authority.
3. Extradition Barriers: Difficulties in extraditing criminals if the country does not have a relevant treaty or if the crime is not considered as such locally.
4. Data volume: The flow of information is enormous, police resources are limited. Priority is given to major, politically significant cases.

Conclusion for the carder: The illusion of anonymity is dispelled.​

International cooperation has created a de facto unified legal framework for cybercrime investigations. A successful operation against a carding ring now resembles a coordinated special forces raid, where digital traces collected in ten countries are pieced together into a single picture, and physical arrests occur simultaneously.

For the carder, this means:

• Using servers in a "safe" country is no longer a panacea — a request via the "24/7 Network" will arrive quickly.
• Cryptocurrencies are not a safe haven, but rather another source of evidence when partnering with analytics firms.
• Working in an international team increases not only income but also risk: the failure of one link in any country can lead to the collapse of the entire network.

Justice has become network-centric. It no longer chases criminals as they move from one border to another. It surrounds them with a simultaneous presence at every point in their digital and physical lives, thanks to a global network of trust and data exchange between police forces worldwide. Carding has transformed from a "crime without borders" into a "crime against all borders simultaneously," making it the number one target of this new, global police machine.