Operation Saffron: Europol Dismantles First VPN Used by 25 Ransomware Gangs

Europol and law enforcement from 18 countries dismantled First VPN on May 19-20, 2026. The service had been running since 2014, providing cover for at least 25 ransomware groups. One Ukrainian administrator was arrested. Thirty-three servers across 27 countries were seized, along with a complete database of over 5,000 criminal accounts.

This one matters more than the usual takedown story.

What First VPN actually was

First VPN was not a consumer product. It was a bulletproof hosting provider. These services exist to ignore law enforcement requests, accept payments in cryptocurrency, and keep no records that could identify customers.

The service ran for 12 years before Europol caught up with it. During that time, it gave ransomware gangs like Avaddon the infrastructure to launch attacks, collect payments, and vanish. The gangs routed their traffic through First VPN’s servers, making attribution nearly impossible for investigators.

Bitdefender participated in the operation alongside Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3), which coordinated action across Canada, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, the UK, and the USA.

The seized user database is the real prize here. Over 5,000 accounts linked to criminal activity, with full transaction histories and connection logs. Investigators now have a direct link to every group that used the service.

Why this takedown is different

Law enforcement has historically gone after individual ransomware operators. Arrest one, indict the leadership, the group splinters and often reforms under a new name. It is slow, expensive, and the results are uneven.

Operation Saffron took a different route: target the shared infrastructure. Bulletproof hosting providers, cryptocurrency mixers, and criminal VPN services are the plumbing that makes large-scale ransomware possible. Take out the pipes, and every group using them loses their operational cover at once.

Twenty-five ransomware groups lost their anonymity layer in a single weekend. They now have to rebuild from scratch, knowing that at least one of their key providers kept better records than advertised.

It is the same logic that dismantled several darknet markets in recent years: go after the logistics, not just the criminals.

What this means for ordinary VPN users

Here is where the story gets misread online. Every time law enforcement takes down a “VPN,” tech commentators write pieces about how VPNs cannot be trusted. That framing misses the point.

First VPN was not a consumer VPN. It used the VPN label as a technical description, not a product category. It had no public-facing app, no privacy policy, no independent audit, and no interest in protecting user data from law enforcement. Its whole value to customers was that it operated outside any legal framework.

Consumer VPNs like NordVPN or ProtonVPN are registered businesses in specific jurisdictions, subject to audits, bound by their own terms of service, and regularly reviewed by external security firms. NordVPN is based in Panama and has passed multiple no-logs audits by outside firms. ProtonVPN is based in Switzerland, under some of the strongest privacy laws in the world, and publishes transparency reports covering every government request it receives.

The question for any legitimate VPN user is not “could this VPN be seized?” It is “does this VPN keep logs that would be useful if seized?”

A properly run no-logs VPN, seized tomorrow, yields nothing. No connection records, no activity data, no user identity mapping.

What a no-logs policy actually protects you from

First VPN’s downfall was its database. Europol walked away with 5,000 criminal account records because the service kept them. That is the exact opposite of how a genuine no-logs policy works.

When a VPN says it keeps no logs, it cannot hand over records it never created. This has been tested in real legal proceedings. Multiple providers have been subpoenaed in various jurisdictions and could not produce user data because none existed.

This is why jurisdiction matters alongside the no-logs claim. A VPN based in the US, Australia, or the UK sits inside intelligence-sharing agreements (Five Eyes, Nine Eyes, Fourteen Eyes) that can pressure companies to retain data or cooperate with surveillance programs. A VPN based in Switzerland or Panama faces a different legal environment. Government requests still happen, but the legal threshold is higher and companies are generally required to notify users when possible.

None of this means European or US-based VPNs are automatically compromised. It means the legal framework shapes how much pressure a provider can be put under. Jurisdiction is one factor among several.

The gap between bulletproof services and consumer VPNs

First VPN-type services are not a gray area. They advertise to criminals, price their services accordingly, and have explicit policies about ignoring legal requests from any government. That is the business model.

Consumer VPNs are trying to do the opposite: build a legitimate business on user trust. Their commercial incentive is to protect users, because any scandal destroys their reputation and revenue. First VPN had no reputation to protect.

Ransomware groups used First VPN because they knew regular VPNs would eventually comply with legal requests. That is why they paid a premium for a service that operated outside the law.

How to evaluate a VPN after a story like this

News like Operation Saffron tends to make people paranoid about VPNs in general. That is the wrong reaction. But it is also a reasonable time to check whether your current VPN actually has the protections it claims.

A few things worth verifying:

The no-logs claim should be backed by an audit. Not a self-declaration, not a press release, an actual third-party audit by a named security firm. NordVPN uses Deloitte and KPMG. ProtonVPN commissions Securitum. If a provider does not name the auditor, the audit probably does not exist.

The jurisdiction matters, but it is not the whole picture. Switzerland and Panama are good. So is Iceland. But a provider based in a Five Eyes country can still have strong privacy if it operates a genuine no-logs architecture and has proven it under legal pressure.

The ownership should be transparent. Some VPN brands are owned by holding companies with unclear structures. That does not automatically make them untrustworthy, but you should know who is behind the product. First VPN had no public ownership. That should have been a red flag to anyone paying attention.

Finally, the price should be realistic. First VPN reportedly charged around $1.80 per month. That is below what legitimate infrastructure costs. When a VPN is priced at a fraction of the market rate and targets buyers who “don’t ask questions,” it is not a consumer product.

What comes next

The 5,000 seized accounts will generate investigations for years. Some will trace back to ransomware groups not yet identified publicly. Others will add evidence to ongoing prosecutions.

The infrastructure strategy will likely continue. Europol and partner agencies have shown it works. Other bulletproof hosting providers are watching their competitors’ servers sit in evidence lockers.

For ransomware groups, rebuilding operational infrastructure after a seizure like this takes months. During that time, they are exposed. Some will go quiet. A few will make mistakes moving too fast.

For regular VPN users, Operation Saffron changes nothing about how to evaluate a VPN. The checklist remains: verified no-logs policy, independent audit, clear jurisdiction, transparent ownership. First VPN had none of those things. That was the point.

Want to compare all VPNs side by side? Check our full VPN comparison table with scores across 18 criteria.

Sources: TechCrunch, The Hacker News, Tom’s Hardware

Keep reading: The EU Wants VPN Providers to Log Your Data. Here’s What’s Actually in the Plan. and Who Really Owns Your VPN? The Consolidation Map in 2026.