Rydox Cybercrime Marketplace Admin Pleads Guilty, Faces 22 Years
A Kosovar national who helped run the Rydox illegal online marketplace pleads guilty in the United States to aggravated identity theft and money laundering, facing up to 22 years in prison. Ardit Kutleshi and two other administrators are arrested in December 2024 during a joint international operation involving Kosovo law enforcement, Albania's anti-corruption body, and the Royal Malaysian Police, which also seizes the Rydox.cc domain and the marketplace's servers in Kuala Lumpur.
Rydox operates from February 2016 until its shutdown in 2024, selling stolen login credentials, credit card details, and personal information of thousands of US citizens, including Social Security numbers, names, and addresses. Sellers on the platform complete more than 7,600 sales of sensitive data, while the site also offers over 321,000 cybercrime products to more than 18,000 users. The FBI states that Rydox puts cybercriminal tools and stolen identities up for sale before partners take the marketplace down.
The marketplace requires buyers to deposit cryptocurrency, accepting Bitcoin, Monero, Ripple, Ethereum, Litecoin, Perfect Money, Tron, and Verge, with funds going into Rydox-controlled wallets. The site charges sellers a one-time fee of $200 to $500 and takes a 40% cut of every sale, while sellers receive the remaining 60%. Kutleshi is extradited to the US in 2025 and faces charges including conspiracy to commit identity theft, access device fraud, and money laundering.