Technology

To those fretting: there is a wide margin between a legit VPN service and these guys. Interpol are not coming for your paid run-of-the-mill VPN provider.

I hadn't even heard of 1VPN prior to this story, and the reason is that they advertise almost exclusively on cybercrime forums - mentioned multiple times in the article.

The administration/owner of this VPN service explicitly tailored their business to enabling cybercrime. That's real stupid, because it means you become a legitimate law enforcement target as an accomplice with prior knowledge / facilitator to a crime, and generally explicitly waives your immunity rights as a service provider under legal frameworks like EU DSA.

Dutch police stressed that this particular VPN service “was considered criminal, because it specifically targeted cyber criminals.”

First VPN “mainly advertised on the cyber criminal forums known to the police and thus expressly approached cyber criminals as potential clients,” Dutch police said. “The website of the service also stated that any cooperation with the judiciary would be denied, that the service was not subject to any jurisdiction".

Lol. There is no country on earth that is not subject to any jurisdiction - as the VPN provider and users found out.

Any legit VPN has a thorough ToS/policy to explain acceptable and unacceptable use of their systems (including any illlegal use like crimes/DDOS/etc), and to cover the legal jurisdiction they fall under and what they do when recieving legal court orders.

If anything, be pissed that this intentional cybercrime service tarnished the concept of VPNs a little, not that they were pursued and busted. Your legit provider is safe.