According to court documents, 28-year-old Laderian Odom of Monroeville, Alabama, purchased 950 sets of stolen log in credentials from Genesis Market. The credentials included usernames and passwords for online bank accounts, shopping sites, social media accounts, and other online platforms. Investigators established that Odom purchased the stolen credentials after receiving an invitation to Genesis Market in the summer of 2020. He was arrested in April 2023 as part of an international operation dubbed, “Operation Cookie Monster,” which took down 11 clearnet domains that belonged to Genesis market.

Operation Cookie Monster was launched in December 2018, five months after the market’s launch. The investigators first gained access to the market’s servers in December 2020. They collected information associated with the market’s users such as usernames, passwords, email addresses, bitcoin addresses, and purchase history.

The investigators lost access to the servers after the market’s admins changed hosting services. They regained access to the servers in May 2022 and continued collecting information on the market’s users.

The investigators took the market’s clearnet domains down on April 4, in an internationally coordinated action. The investigators executed search warrants at 208 properties worldwide. Odom was one of the 119 suspects arrested following the searches.

The investigators did not take down the market’s onion domain. The market’s administrators kept the onion domain online and took it offline after a while. The admins put up the market for sale and recently announced that they had found a buyer for the market’s entire infrastructure.

Odom pleaded guilty to one count of possession of fifteen or more unauthorized access devices. US District Court Judge Terry F. Moorer sentenced Odom to the maximum sentence of two years in prison for the charge even though he had pleaded guilty.

Judge Moorer agreed with the prosecution’s request to not reduce Odom’s sentence after establishing that Odom had lied about being under indictment while trying to purchase a handgun in August 2023.