Netherlands Seizes 800 Servers, Arrests 2 for Aiding Cyberattacks
Key takeaways
- An investigator with the Tax Intelligence and Investigation Service (FIOD), the Dutch financial crimes agency, during the raid.
- The Dutch investigation focuses on Stark Industries, a sprawling hosting provider that materialized just two weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine.
- That report identified two Moldovan brothers Ivan and Yuri Neculiti and their company PQHosting who were providing one of Stark s two main conduits to the larger Internet.
Authorities in the Netherlands have arrested the co-owners of two related Internet hosting companies for operating IT infrastructure used by Russia to carry out cyberattacks, influence operations and disinformation campaigns inside the European Union. The two men were the focus of a 2025 Krebs On Security story about how their hosting companies had assumed control over the technical infrastructure of Stark Industries Solutions, an Internet service provider sanctioned last year by the EU as a frequent staging ground for cyber mischief from Russia s intelligence agencies.
An investigator with the Tax Intelligence and Investigation Service (FIOD), the Dutch financial crimes agency, during the raid. Image: FIOD.
The Dutch daily news outlet de Volkskrant reports that the Dutch financial crime agency FIOD on May 18 arrested a 57-year-old from Amsterdam and a 39-year-old from The Hague, charging them with violating sanctions law by directly or indirectly making economic resources available to EU-sanctioned entities.