The US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia and the FBI Washington Field Office announced the court-authorized seizure of virtualine.net on Oct 27. Court records say Virtualine sold hosting and domains to criminals, telling an Exploit.in user in 2024 it could be used "for all illegal/black hat activities (including phishing, carding, email spam, port scanning...)", and in 2026 sold an "additional protection plan" that moved a customer's infrastructure to an unaffiliated shell company after law-enforcement requests.

Prosecutors say it kept hosting a forum selling child sexual abuse material and hack-for-hire account break-ins despite repeated notices from police in Germany, Canada and Australia and from NCMEC, took bitcoin through "[NO-AML]" addresses and laundered customer payments. Germany's Polizei Hessen, Dutch police, the UK NCA and private partners OverRIPE and Lumen assisted. Only the domain was seized; the announcement does not mention arrests. For defenders: infrastructure on this provider's IP space is worth flagging in your threat intel, since its customers will now move elsewhere.