German police arrest 3 suspects in Darknet probe

German police have arrested three men suspected of operating the world's second-biggest Darknet marketplace.

Stolen data, forged documents and drugs were all reportedly sold on the Wall Street Market, which was shutdownon Thursday.

State prosecutors believe the platform was the second-largest illegal marketplace operating on the Darknet, and was mainly used to sell cocaine, heroin, cannabis, and amphetamines, as well as hacked data, forged documents, and malware.

The three suspects, aged 22 to 31, were arrested more than a week ago in the German states of Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia, and Baden-Württemberg, Germany's Federal Criminal Police (BKA) said in a statement.

Georg Ungefug, spokesman for the Frankfurt state prosecutors, said the three German nationals were suspected of operating the illegal online platform jointly, and that police had seized the "server infrastructure" of the marketplace during their raid.

"This illegal trade platform was only accessible via the Tor network on the so-called Darknet, and it was based on a worldwide exchange of criminal goods," Ungefug said, before adding that some 63,000 items were on sale on the platform, which had over 1,150,000 customer accounts and 5,400 seller accounts".

"The cryptocurrencies Bitcoin and Monero were used on the platform, with the three suspects earning commissions of between 2 and 6 percent on the sales".

In the raids, police seized more than €550,000 ($615,000) in cash, as well as six-figure sums of stored cryptocurrency and expensive