Original subtitles

[ominous music playing]

- [helicopter blades whirring] - [indistinct chatter on radio]

[news reporter 1, in German] A huge underground bunker became home

to international criminal businesses.

[news reporter 2] Six hundred and fifty police officers were deployed,

including special tactical units.

[indistinct chatter on radio]

[radio beeps]

[police officer 1] Target 200 meters ahead.

[news reporter 3] The main suspect is a 59-year-old man from the Netherlands.

[news reporter 4, in English] A darknet guru called Herman Xennt.

[news reporter 5] He's like your 007 James Bond typical villain.

- [ominous music continues] - [indistinct chatter on radio]

[helicopter blades whirring]

[music ends abruptly]

- [dramatic music playing] - [police officer 1, in German] Go, go, go.

- Team one, advancing. - [police officer 2] No one.

[indistinct chatter on radio]

[police officer 1] Advancing.

[music concludes]

[police officer 1] Team one has reached lower floor.

[police officer 2] Team one, come in, please.

Radio connection is bad.

[tense music playing]

[Xennt] I am sure that people like me

will have a big impact on the future internet.

[computer beeping]

[Xennt] The problem, however, is whether humanity is ready.

[music intensifies]

[music concludes]

[interviewer] Do you want to make the world a better place?

Yes, of course.

Next question, please.

[interviewer] Do you see yourself as a criminal?

No, not really.

[theme music playing]

[news reporter 1] A data center exclusively for criminal businesses

worth millions.

[in English] It's called Cyberbunker.

Cyberbunker is a web hosting service.

[news reporter 2, in German] At the center of this thriller is a bunker

that once belonged to the Bundeswehr.

[news reporter 3] In the middle of Germany,

near Traben-Trarbach on the Moselle,

the cybercriminals operated their international business.

An extraordinary blow against cybercrime.

Drugs and forged documents.

[news reporter 4, in English] Illegal drugs, selling weapons.

The biggest cyberattack...

In internet history.

[Ed] These guys started out being idealists,

they ended up being more and more tarnished.

[theme music continues]

[Ed] What is happening in this bunker?

[theme music concludes]

So, um, hello everybody.

I'm Kevin and I am one of the dukes of Cyberbunker.

Uh, my official title is Minister of Propaganda.

[ominous music playing]

[in German] I'm Michiel and I was the manager of Cyberbunker.

[Sven, in English] We can't do it on the record without the titles.

It doesn't have to be all the titles,

but at least it has to have the prince in there.

I'm Prince Sven Olaf of Cyberbunker Kamphuis,

Minister of Foreign Affairs,

Telecommunication, Transport, and most recently also War.

Um, I'm the vice head of state of the Republic Cyberbunker,

now acting head of state.

So, yep.

[Michiel, in German] If I was to go back there now,

to right before the first visit to Traben-Trarbach,

then I would have said...

"Don't go there, because...

it can't end well."

[elevator bell dings]

- [tranquil music playing] - [birds chirping]

- [church bell ringing] - [children shouting indistinctly]

[Patrice] Life in Traben-Trarbach is usually peaceful.

We don't have the hustle and bustle of a big city.

It's quite soothing for the soul.

But if I were to be asked about the bunker,

what it is, I would have just said,

"It's the worst thing that could possibly happen here."

[ominous music playing]

[Bärbel] The bunker everyone is talking about

is located on a mountain.

You can see an antenna, a fence, and nothing else.

A green site.

[Patrice] From 2012, the bunker was empty.

And a buyer was then sought.

[Winfried] Until the news came in 2013 it had been sold.

As a local journalist, of course, you want to know.

Who's the buyer and what do they want to do with it?

I did some research

and it turned out that he was a somewhat dubious character in the online world.

The name I was given was Herman Johan Xennt.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Hajo] There were many stories swirling around him.

He had very long, blond hair. He always wore a long coat.

But he showed up here as a businessman.

In 2013, during a regular city council meeting,

Xennt presented his project.

He explained that he needed a bunker...

BUNKER FLOOR PLAN

[Hajo] ...that he was Dutch, and had done this before.

"We need the rooms for our employees, for the IT people."

"And it'll grow over time."

He then created what we now call a cloud, or a data center, there.

And at the time, of course, we thought it sounded exciting.

Silicon Valley, Traben-Trarbach, exactly. [chuckles]

Only smaller, why not?

PURCHASE CONTRACT

[Patrice] But there wasn't jubilation in the council

that a buyer had been found.

As the city council, we couldn't prevent it anyway.

There were mixed feelings about it.

You just heard trucks going in and out at night.

He had to get his equipment into the bunker somehow, of course.

But, initially, it was sort of intangible.

[Hajo] There was also a bit of Googling done in city hall.

"Who is this guy? Where did he come from?"

And there was some information already out there.

He already had skeletons in his closet. There was something there.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Jörg] I'm Jörg Angerer, Senior Public Prosecutor,

and I worked on the Cyberbunker case.

In 2013, I was called by the Office of Criminal Investigation,

who told me that Traben-Trarbach's municipal mayor

had got in touch to say

that someone wanted to move into a former NATO bunker

that was being sold,

and that he had already been involved in shady business in Holland.

That was the initial tip.

[Tim] I'm Tim Henkel.

I'm a cybercrime investigator for Rhineland-Pfalz Criminal Police.

I'd just completed training and was taking my first steps as a police officer.

It all started in 2013.

My supervisor back then informed me that there was a case there

and asked me if I'd be interested in taking part in this operation,

which I thought was extremely exciting and I was very excited, of course.

We first conducted online investigations into this Dutchman,

into his past...

and first did some research into who we were dealing with.

[sinister music playing]

[automated voice as Xennt, in English]

[Kevin] Xennt is a very huge part of Cyberbunker.

He was the head behind this.

It was born actually in Cyberbunker One in the Netherlands

where we had our first bunker.

[in Dutch] Well, this is the bunker.

If you come in with me quickly...

then I can also show you the inside.

[in English] First time I've met Xennt,

I think it was above ground actually.

[in Dutch] So, this is the rear entrance.

You can see the spacious entrance with two diesel air vent filters.

[in English] It's kind of like a cross-mixture between Steve Jobs and um...

the guy from Star Trek. Yeah.

[speaks indistinctly in Dutch]

[in German] He had this fascination for bunkers.

[in Dutch] So, I think if this videotape continues as it is,

bad bits like this shot will be cut out.

We'll only keep the good bits and then you'll see

the progress of the renovation of a bunker, a small nuclear bunker,

into a bunker with a...

classy appearance,

which makes you think you're in a space station or something.

So, there you have it.

You're welcome to keep looking around.

[cell phone ringing]

[cell phone chimes]

[Guido, in English] Well, my name is Guido Blaauw

and everything I provide,

everything I say, can and may be used in the documentary.

[pensive music playing]

[Guido] On one hand, Xennt is a very warm person,

a very gentle person, very nice to talk to.

And on the other hand, he is just this hardcore criminal,

making money over everything he can.

[upbeat synth music playing]

[presenter 1] In 1995, some ten million people

regularly use the internet.

What's attracted many of them is the World Wide Web.

[Ed] That early period of the internet

was full of this idea that perhaps, you know,

the world was gonna really change for the better because of this new tool.

Nice of you to join us.

[Ed] Xennt understood the internet, kind of right in the core of it.

Understood its possibilities.

This growing world, which was called online,

which was still kind of mysterious to lots of people.

[presenter 2] Anyone with a computer and a modem can join in.

[Ed] Xennt had a store which was just selling computers.

Very early days of personal computers.

[Guido] He made a good amount of money with that.

He bought himself a Lamborghini...

um, and-- and he had money to buy a bunker.

["Only Love Can Break Your Heart" playing]

Ta-da!

[Guido] When I was in there two hours with him and we came outside,

I said, "Xennt, I'm in love,"

and he said, "Well, I had exactly the same thing

when I visited this bunker for the first time,

I was completely in love."

♪ When you were young and on your own... ♪

For some unknowable reason, he loved bunkers.

He and some friends moved in.

There was some work you have to do to...

And that work was under construction when I joined.

[in Dutch] See, there it is, and it works too. Follow me.

♪ But only love can break your heart ♪

♪ Try to be sure right from the start... ♪

[Guido, in English] It was the most ideal and most fantasy-rich

possible location you can imagine.

Paradise.

[Sven] He actually thinks that

you can make a bunker look like a spaceship.

I keep telling him it will never fly away but... [laughs]

Yeah, but, you know, spacey doors. [imitates door opening, closing]

[laughs]

♪ He hides his head inside a dream... ♪

They were programmers, early adopters of the technology,

thinking about the internet in this deep way.

[Martijn] It was like a community of people brought together

from all kinds of backgrounds

using the bunker as a kind of center of gravity for...

you know, doing weird and funny stuff on the internet.

[Guido] It was a group of friends,

a bunch of hackers having the best time of their lives.

[Sven] The internet, back in those days,

you could just do whatever you want.

You also could not call the police

if something happened that you didn't want to happen

because the police simply didn't understand any of it.

But the internet had to be paid somehow.

What paid for the internet?

[song distorts, concludes]

- Porn. [laughs] - [ominous music playing]

[Ed] They had a bunch of servers, they were hosting porn websites.

All websites have to be physically hosted somewhere

on a computer or on a server.

And that's what hosting is, you're giving a home to a website.

[Guido] If you have a few porn hosters in your data center,

it's a cash cow because it generates so much traffic

and that's what a data center gets its money from.

[Ed] At some point, they named this company Cyberbunker.

[Guido] That was always his... his dream.

It's a very nice location.

It was a very nice location.

It's ruins.

[Sven] They were shouting, "The bunker is on fire,"

and I'm like, "Nah."

"Nah, bunkers can't burn."

[Ed] The emergency services were called and what they found

in the wake of that fire was a burnt-out ecstasy lab.

[sinister music playing]

What the hell is going on?

You know, is this guy involved in illegal stuff?

[Ed] At a certain point,

presumably to make some extra money,

Xennt sublet a portion of the bunker to another group.

Xennt said that he knew nothing about what was going on.

He had simply sublet the space and what they did was their own business.

And eventually the police had no choice but to accept his version of events.

[tense music playing]

[Sven] We could basically throw away everything

that was in there.

That was a bit of a problem. Yeah.

[Martijn] There was a bunker burned down.

He was not capable of building it up again.

Several people chasing him for the fact that he owed them money.

He needed to move on. He needed to find a new identity.

And that's what he found in Germany, in new Cyberbunker, his new kingdom.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Martijn] It made me realize that Xennt was still doing

what he was doing before,

that he was involved with things

that you would normally not show to the outer world.

And that needed to be stopped.

[tense music playing]

[Martijn] So, my name is Martijn Burger.

I've been in the internet business of things

for quite a long time.

As a business partner of Xennt, I worked closely together with him.

I was probably the right person to help him

to achieve a structured organization.

It was not like a thing I was used to in a corporate structure,

in a company structure, you know, it was like...

a zoo... [chuckles] ...to be honest.

At a certain moment in time,

Xennt was saying, "Martijn, I throw you out."

And that's what more or less triggered my reaction.

I started investigating him,

the organizations, and the people surrounding him,

because I felt that some things were not correct.

I reached out to the authorities

and tried to make them interested,

aware that they should further investigate this

and get into the details of what they were doing.

[ominous music playing]

[Tim, in German] We believed that Xennt fled the Netherlands

to evade the threat of prosecution there.

At that time, it was clear to us

he was doing the same thing here as he'd done in the Netherlands.

That was the start of our investigation.

At the start, we used classic observation

in order to gain insights.

I don't believe that the group were explicitly aware

that investigations against them were underway.

[in English] Yeah, we knew we were observated, but then again

everyone spies.

[in German] I'm just trying to think of the best adjective to describe it.

The observation at the bunker site was not successful.

[helicopter blades whirring]

[Jörg] We were not sure exactly what was in the bunker.

The facility is huge and we couldn't get to it.

[automated voice as Xennt, in English] "I am a creator,

not a consumer."

"I will make the world a better place to live in."

"I have more ideas

that I can possibly realize in this lifetime."

"Anyone who like to share ideas

or wants to join me in one or more project

is welcome to contact me."

[drone whirring]

[pensive music playing]

[in German] The people who came to Cyberbunker

were searching for something.

[in English] There was a time where I was having a really tough time

with my relationship back then, and my workplace was about to stop.

The first time I entered the site,

I was astonished by the scale of the base.

They showed me around.

I got a room there to stay in.

Then the question arose, "Would you like to join the team?"

And then I said, "Yeah, of course."

I was happy to do so.

[in German] There was a sort of world there, that you could only imagine

if you let your imagination run wild and read about something like it.

But it was there, it was real.

Xennt gave you a sense

that something special was being built there.

He had this aura of a visionary, his ideas were good.

He wanted to start a software development center.

This is a huge project going on here.

It's really big. A bit like a mini Silicon Valley.

[Kevin, in English] The main bunker itself, it's huge.

It consists of five different floors.

We have the first level

where we had our electronics lab and a little kitchen.

In the second level, we all had our offices

for our day-to-day businesses.

On the third level was the server level.

On the fourth level, you would have power and air,

and then you had a fifth level, and that was just utilities.

When you are above ground, the world can kind of disturb you.

But the moment when you enter the bunker and you go around the corner,

the only people that can talk to you or disturb you

are the people that are inside of the bunker.

[Michiel, in German] You feel like you're locked in.

That's when you experience this silence.

[music stops]

[Michiel] And then, you immediately also realize

that true silence doesn't exist.

Because you hear your blood rushing.

[heart beating]

[pensive music playing]

[Kevin, in English] It was a very beautiful place

to come to your senses and to work in.

[Michiel, in German] You felt very secure there, very comfortable.

Work was good, living was good, I felt very at home.

- [water running] - [cutlery clicking]

[Kevin, in English] We always had breakfast together

and we always had supper together.

It took some time for people to get to know you and to accept you.

But when that happened we had each other's backs.

[indistinct chatter]

[Michiel, in German] Most of the time, everything was relaxed.

There was laughter, joking around.

[Ed, in English] They were living there. It wasn't just where they worked.

This was a key part of their identity. They were in the bunker.

[Kevin] It was a real open atmosphere

that was really welcoming and then warming.

A real digital playground.

[Michiel, in German] It was as though everyone had their own vision,

their own idea, and then joined together.

[electricity buzzing]

[ominous music playing]

[Kevin, in English] Cyberbunker just goes out of the ideal

that the internet is a free place.

Freedom of the internet.

The reason why we did hosting at Cyberbunker was to give people a place

to safely store their data and their servers.

We will provide you with a server.

[servers whirring]

[Kevin] And it's up to you to do with the server what you want.

- [church bell tolling] - [indistinct chatter]

[pensive music playing]

[Bärbel, in German] Mr. Xennt had an appointment and came into the salon.

He looked very fresh, very young.

He looked good.

Maybe it was his leather coat, but I thought...

he's from another planet. He's different.

Then he chose a very light blond, a cool blond,

and that's what he got.

He was silent and stared at the floor.

And I felt that it was a negative silence and was actually very happy

when this gentleman left.

The bunker crew, sometimes it felt as if a pirate ship was docking here,

the whole pirate crew ran through the village, amusing themselves...

[chuckles] ...then were suddenly gone again and casted off.

You just wondered,

what's going on up there?

[ominous music playing]

[Patrice] You didn't know who was up there.

What is he actually doing?

You didn't hear or see anything, or know what was going on.

But there were rumors.

Maybe he's growing some kind of drugs up there?

[dogs barking]

[Patrice] The other thing was his dogs,

which ran free all day long and annoyed the community.

That was the final straw for me,

so I said, "No matter what, I'm calling Mr. Xennt."

[ominous music continues]

[music concludes]

[Patrice] He was surprised, but he said, "No problem, come on over."

He said, "Give me 15 minutes to rein the dogs in,

but then come on over. No problem."

That was a positive starting point.

We went up there. Mr. Xennt greeted us quite normally,

the atmosphere was very open.

Then he told us who he is, what he does.

We said you can look around anywhere you want.

Everything was open.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Patrice] Then we just went down, level by level,

and he said, "Open every door, I have nothing to hide."

I was relieved that the premises weren't being used for anything suspicious

and that we didn't find a hemp plantation.

And suddenly you came into a room that was really black.

[tense music playing]

[Patrice] Very cold, very austere.

It was definitely a bit strange.

What struck you immediately was that there were no windows, of course.

You're practically floating in time and space.

It was a very different atmosphere in there.

Yeah, very unusual for me.

[drone whirring]

[Tim] Of course,

it wouldn't have helped if we'd rung Cyberbunker's doorbell and asked,

"Mr. Xennt, can you show us what's here and what you're up to?"

That is where protecting the case comes first and takes priority.

For us, it was very important to stay out of sight

and ensure they didn't realize we were conducting an investigation.

[radio static hissing]

[Tim] Telephone surveillance is a very intensive measure.

You enter the other person's day-to-day life.

BUNKER AREA? MONEY HANDOVER

The group is very secretive, and, of course, we had to find ways

to get information from the inner circle.

[ominous music playing]

[phone ringing]

- [Mr. Green, in English] Hello? - [caller 1] Hello.

[Mr. Green] Yeah. The suits. Were the suits all right?

[caller 1] Yeah, they're perfect and fit.

You know, they're these special fabrics.

They can change color when exposed to sunlight,

so you have to check how good they are.

[Mr. Green] That's no problem.

[caller 1] We have to talk about behavior.

[Tim, in German] The Cyberbunker group spoke in a very coded way.

For example, "boxes of oranges," or various types of furniture.

It was colors of ships, it was suits of various changing colors.

[Mr. Green, in English] Hello. I just found the oranges. Tell me more.

[caller 1] So, this happened.

He received 700 boxes of oranges, and they are at the right place.

And now he needs 350 more to make full charge.

[Jörg, in German] So, when people make these kinds of phone calls,

it's clear something is up. That's not how people talk.

The codification of language and terminology.

which was revealed through the telephone surveillance,

created big problems for us.

Ultimately, we couldn't identify crimes through telephone surveillance,

but the gang's structure became clear.

It started with the leadership team around Xennt

and the manager, Rugers.

Then there were IT workers who worked in the bunker.

There was a guard, who also cooked for the staff.

It was clear that Mr. Xennt gave orders and others did what he said,

but the role of the others wasn't 100% clear at the beginning.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Tim] However, for us, the key was the servers.

"What is on these servers?"

"What data is going in and out of there?"

[keyboard clacking]

[tense music playing]

[Martin] With Cyberbunker, the advantage was

that cybercriminals felt safe.

When you went onto Cyberbunker, it was pretty clear what it was for.

It had a picture of a bunker.

Which I assumed was total bull, if I'm honest, I didn't think it was real.

There was an FBI raid team on it, trying to get into that bunker.

Cyberbunker was known in the scene as a so-called "bulletproof hoster."

Bulletproof hosting,

that means, no matter what happens, the servers stay online.

[in English] What made Cyberbunker different from other service providers

is the fact that we guaranteed privacy.

[in German] Cyberbunker was really the place to go

for anyone in the scene

who wanted to host questionable or illegal content.

The bunker specifically advertised that it hosts everything,

except child pornography and terrorism.

This made you think, whoever advertises in that way

isn't looking for legal customers.

[in English] We simply do not know ourselves

what the clients are doing with our servers.

[in German] Xennt always said we're doing nothing wrong,

everything is legal.

[in English] Michiel comes up to me.

"Yeah, we are this internet provider

and we have customers that are all banks and lawyers."

Right, Michiel. [laughs]

[pensive music playing]

[Martijn] It was a kind of fantasy world that Xennt created.

Where he pulled them in.

He was very good in selling his story and creating a kind of overall enthusiasm.

He was a huge fan of freedom of speech.

He wanted to give back the internet to the people, the world.

[Ed] They believed the internet allowed people to have greater freedoms

than perhaps existed in the real world.

I don't think that all of them shared a whole world view.

Certainly, Sven Kamphuis was more extreme than the others.

He's a strange character.

[uplifting instrumental music playing]

[music concludes]

The Republic of Cyberbunker was an idea that was written down and is wild.

[upbeat rock music playing]

[Sven] Cyberbunker is the most technologically advanced

and one of the richest countries in the world. [laughs]

We actually declared independence.

[Guido] Sven just said, "Okay, the Cyberbunker is NATO ground."

"There is no NATO anymore, it's our ground,

so we now have the Republic of Cyberbunker."

We don't want to be on your map. We have our own society.

We have our own rules, we have our own laws, we have our own everything.

It's hilarious that, you know, they declare their own king.

[Guido] Xennt is the king of Cyberbunker.

Sven is the prince of Cyberbunker.

The king is also the president, and the crown prince, which is me,

is also the vice head of state, aka the vice president.

[Guido] Sven said, "I will create passports."

He even drove around with number plates.

It was a country in a country.

It's half playful and half serious.

[Guido] It was all created by Sven.

It was all fantasy.

So, no one took it seriously.

[music concludes]

[interviewer] What is your title?

Uh, my title is Duke of Cyberbunker and Minister of Propaganda.

I think that's it. Yes, member of government,

but that's evidentially.

The best country in the world. [laughs]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[pensive music playing]

[Guido] Sven, he looks like a chaotic weirdo.

But if he wants, he can shut up the internet.

Really. If he wants.

He did some very rare and stupid things on the internet.

He's capable of doing that.

He knows his way to intrude into a company server.

He's that kind of guy.

[audio glitches]

[dramatic music playing]

[news reporter 1] Has your internet seemed sluggish?

[news reporter 2] The war that's slowing everything down, including Netflix.

If you're thinking the internet is running a little slowly lately,

you're not imagining it.

The web is in the midst of what's being called

the biggest cyberattack of all time.

[news reporter 4] It usually only takes Shannon Lee a few seconds

to access her movies on Netflix,

but minutes go by and the screen stays black.

It's slowing down connection speeds all across the globe.

But who's behind it?

China? North Korea?

[news reporter 5] It's actually rooted in an argument between two European groups.

Spamhaus, that block spam,

and Cyberbunker, a company that hosts websites.

[news reporter 6] Spamhaus is based in Europe.

They're an internet spam watchdog.

What they do is they create spam data filters.

Cyberbunker were blacklisted by Spamhaus

because Spamhaus said too many of the companies they were hosting

were sending too much of this stuff out.

So, the problem that we have with Spamhaus

is that they try to control parts of the internet.

And with control, let's say,

that they have the power to block your IP addresses.

That site, Spamhaus, has power that it shouldn't have

because the internet should be an open place.

[Guido] So, it was a real pain in the ass

for the clients of the Cyberbunker

and Sven was fighting them for it.

[Sven] And then we started to, like,

figure out ways how we could get rid of this problem.

One of the suggestions, obviously, was to just get rid of the guy as a whole,

but, you know, some people just like to play with their food.

[tense techno music playing]

We tried to use diplomacy to get them to stop blocking them.

They just said, "No."

And then Cyberbunker said, "Okay, we'll see about that."

And the rest is history.

A battle is waging across the internet.

The biggest cyberattacks...

...in internet history.

[Guido] Sven went just completely berserk.

[news reporter 1] Huge, concentrated data streams

were sent out over the internet,

slowing down connections around the world.

Security experts fear that this is just the beginning.

[suspenseful music playing]

That attack is so big, it's affecting everyone online.

SPAM DISPUTE SLOWS THE INTERNET

The internet, hit with the virtual equivalent of a nuclear bomb.

Some are saying essentially it's attacking the very structure of the internet.

See, this is why you do not get on the bad side of hackers.

I love you hackers. You're wonderful. You're all great. [chuckles nervously]

We can now get in touch with Sven Olaf Kamphuis.

He's a spokesman for Cyberbunker.

Now, you are being accused of this massive cyberattack.

Is somebody gonna be held account? Could somebody go to prison over this?

Could somebody be fined? Is this gonna be resolved?

I doubt that the people that did the attacks

are in any country where doing a DDoS attack is illegal

or where they can even be found. So... [laughs]

Not much issues there.

[ominous music playing]

PIRATE PARTY

[news reporter, in Spanish] Police in Barcelona have arrested

a 35-year-old Dutch activist

who was responsible for the largest DDoS cyberattack in history.

The investigation started in March...

[Sven, in English] At that point, I was driving in an orange thing

with all my crap in the back

and then I went to Spain during this entire operation.

[Ed] He was arrested

and he is eventually processed in the Netherlands

under criminal charges.

I was convicted not on a criminal organization

because they couldn't prove

that I was in charge of the operation at any time.

[ominous music continues]

There simply is no law against it.

[laughs] Done.

[Ed] He believes in total freedom.

In his mind, you should be able to do anything on the internet.

But, you know, how that shakes out is,

it means that he's...

you know, seems to espouse for the worst things in the world

to be on the internet.

[interviewer] So, is there anything you wouldn't host?

No, there was not anything I would not host.

[sinister music playing]

The "except for" is something Xennt made up.

Xennt came up with the "except for," I don't have the "except for."

Sven felt above the law, in many ways.

With the knowledge he has, he can be dangerous.

- [birds squawking] - [suspenseful music playing]

[Tim, in German] We also then reached a point where we said,

"Okay, how can we gather more intelligence now?"

In 2017, we decided to carry out a so-called network node monitoring.

This means we recorded the data center's incoming and outgoing data traffic.

[Jörg] If crimes were committed there,

they'd show up in the network traffic.

The intention of the surveillance

was to see what was being done in the bunker.

What data was going in and out? What was illegal and what wasn't?

[suspenseful music continues]

[Tim] We didn't expect the sheer quantity that we got from our surveillance.

[dramatic music playing]

[computer chimes]

[Tim] We established that on the Cyberbunker servers,

phishing sites were hosted,

large-scale hacker attacks were committed,

narcotics stores were running.

It was the first really effective investigation.

We had clear results, clear sites.

Really potent criminal sites.

None of these criminals could operate their sites,

if they didn't have a hoster to provide servers for them to do so.

You have to realize that there are always real crimes behind it.

[Tim] We determined that, for example,

Wall Street Market was hosted there,

the largest darknet market at the time for drugs, weapons, other illegal goods.

[Martin] I'm Martin Frost.

I was one of the operators of Wall Street Market.

This marketplace was one of the largest in the world.

In my opinion, Cyberbunker offered a very professional hosting service,

um... [chuckles]

...to an extent, even better than what I see in the legal sphere.

For us, that was pretty much the reason we went there and stayed.

On Wall Street Market, you found pretty much anything.

Starting with marijuana to MDMA, cocaine or heroin.

The fact that you're far removed from all these events,

from the production process, dealing and things on the streets,

you're really far away from it.

You're just sitting at your computer.

At first, you don't see organized crime, they operate in a different way.

I do believe though that in recent years

organized crime has also increasingly caught on. "Hey."

"These are new distribution channels." And, of course, they use them too.

- [radio static] - [menacing music playing]

[phone ringing]

[caller 1, in English] Hello?

[caller 2] Hello. I'm calling on behalf of Mr. Green.

I mean, George.

George has found a new apartment near Traben-Trarbach.

[caller 1] All right.

[indistinct chatter over radio]

[caller 2] Hello. I'm calling on behalf of Mr. Green.

I mean, George.

[caller 1] All right.

[Tim, in German] Then suddenly a whole new name appeared

in the telephone surveillance.

[in English] "Mr. Green."

[pensive music playing]

[Nicola] My name sounds so funny when you say it in German. [chuckles]

[indistinct chatter]

Tallant. Yeah.

My name is Nicola Tallant and I am a crime journalist from Ireland.

Ireland is a place that has been blighted by drugs.

[somber music playing]

[Nicola] There are a number of gangs.

We've had a number of very significant

murderous feuds over the past few decades.

Mr. Green is actually an alias

and, uh, it's an alias that has been used for quite a long time, um,

but the individual behind it, of course, is George Mitchell AKA The Penguin.

[ominous music playing]

[Nicola] To me, he is the ultimate godfather of crime.

[news reporter] For almost 20 years now, George Mitchell has played a leading role

in running drugs into Ireland and Britain,

but he's also been up to his fat neck in major robberies and arms smuggling.

[Nicola] Within the criminal underworld, he is definitely a feared character.

For 20 years, George Mitchell hadn't been photographed,

he hadn't been seen.

Everybody wanted to track him down,

but he had literally gone into darkness

and we weren't getting very much information about him.

Obviously, we could see that he was still operating.

We knew his networks in Ireland and they were very active.

But any leads we followed had come to nothing.

- And then one day, I got lucky... - [music ends abruptly]

...and a tip came in.

And George Mitchell, I was told, was in, of all places, Germany.

We came upon this town called Traben-Trarbach, in Germany,

which just looked so unlikely.

[tense music playing]

[Nicola] It's just the last place in the world you'd expect to see,

or to find, a godfather of crime.

We drove around a bit,

drove up to this Cyberbunker place to have a little look.

[Nicola, in car] I don't think we'll be able to use any of this.

I think turn and get out.

It's not worth the risk now.

[Nicola] We had a little look up around the bunker.

[investigator] Can I use that camera for a sec? No, the other camera.

[camera shutter clicking]

[Nicola] We knew that he was hanging out with Xennt,

but that he didn't like doing that up in the bunker

because he was nervous and claustrophobic when he went in.

So, they were having business meetings,

but they were having them in coffee shops and in restaurants in the town.

The information I had got

was that Mitchell was staying in a waterside apartment,

we didn't know which one.

And when he was in town, most days, they would take a car.

There was a very distinctive registration plate on it.

It was something with BOBO on it.

[investigator] They are gonna pass me here.

[Nicola] A couple of days into the job, sure enough,

the BOBO car appeared.

And it pulled up outside an apartment complex.

And this kind of older guy came out,

a man who didn't look as big as I was expecting,

rushed along to the car and got into the back of it.

[camera shutter clicking]

[Nicola] As the car pulled away,

we looked at the back of the camera,

blew up the image and sure enough, it was George Mitchell.

[suspenseful music playing]

I was speechless for a while...

uh, and then I was...

Okay, I was absolutely delighted.

I couldn't believe that we'd finally tracked him down.

And once we'd one image of him, we knew where he was,

it was like a playground, Traben-Trarbach.

[upbeat indie song playing]

♪ Oh, you done got away ♪

♪ It don't bother me no more ♪

- ♪ Gotta catch that flight ♪ - ♪ Gonna catch that flight... ♪

[Nicola] We wanted to try and get as much as we possibly could.

♪ Catch that flight... ♪

[Nicola] I had no idea whether he had backup,

whether he had spotters working for him,

which is usually the case.

But the more we discretely followed Mitchell,

it appeared he didn't.

It appeared that he just really had Xennt with him.

♪ Gonna catch that flight... ♪

[Nicola] I wanted to approach him.

I wanted to put a few questions to him

and get up close and personal with him.

[song fades]

We seemed to make our way down the street. And from memory, um,

they came out of this shoe shop.

[indistinct chatter]

Yeah, okay, no. Tell them exactly what's happening here.

- [tense music playing] - [George] Okay.

- [Nicola] Hiya. - [George] Hi!

[Nicola] How's it going? George, quick word?

- How are you? - Very good.

[Nicola] Good. Haven't seen you in a long time.

Yeah.

[Nicola] You settled in here?

He looked up, and he was sort of surprised.

I think I asked him how he was, or something like that.

He heard the Dublin accent, and he sort of said, for a second,

"I'm grand, I'm grand. Yeah."

And then he just took a minute and he looked in under my baseball cap

and he just went, "Fuck off."

[sinister music playing]

[Nicola] Last time we heard from you,

you said you were a legitimate businessman.

Do you want to confirm that?

The gardai in Ireland are still interested in speaking to you,

in relation to drug trafficking.

Have you anything to say about that?

They were going... [chuckles] "...Who is she?"

- Get enough? We've stopped traffic. - [car horns honking]

[Nicola] I don't think Xennt knew what the hell was going on.

I think he was surprised that I knew his name.

- Herman, is it? - What's that, Mädchen?

[Nicola] Is that your name?

[suspenseful music playing]

[Nicola] To me, he looked like a villain out of a James Bond movie.

In my game,

you've only got a very short window of opportunity

before you push it too far.

We needed to get out of town at that point.

That was it. The job was over.

[dramatic music playing]

[Nicola] I was told that this relationship with Herman Xennt

dated way back to when Mitchell first arrived in Amsterdam.

I certainly have reporting that suggests that George Mitchell and Xennt

were in contact in the late '90s.

George Mitchell ended up getting arrested for handling stolen computer parts.

Note also that Xennt had a computer business.

[Nicola] I could sort of see connections.

I just presumed George was just the finance man.

I didn't expect that he'd understand the nitty-gritty of it.

[Nicola] Knowing now what we know about the Cyberbunker,

I really do feel that I had only scratched the surface.

I think this story was maybe something that moved

the watching brief by authorities in Germany to a new level.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Tim, in German] When a person like George Mitchell

shows up in a preliminary investigation,

someone with ties to the Irish mafia, who's also linked to homicides there,

who is synonymous with major drugs and arms trafficking,

that, of course, changes the dynamics of the case a lot.

[in English] So, if you put bits and pieces together like the ecstasy lab,

fire, Xennt escaping to Germany,

buying another bunker,

providing data services to external customers...

Irish mobsters being involved...

Sven being involved in DDoS attacks on a global scale,

hosting black markets,

it becomes such a big story,

so many elements,

that you really have to dig deep into it to create a bigger picture.

[tense music playing]

[Leroy] My name is Leroy Shelton.

I'm a supervisory special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

I've been with the FBI for ten years, all with the Cyber Division.

And in 2017,

I worked the biggest, most sophisticated cyber investigation of my career,

and it involved Cyberbunker.

[tense music continues]

[Leroy] In the fall of 2017,

we opened an investigation into Wall Street Market.

The 6,500 vendors on that market

sold drugs to 1.1 million users.

[Martin, in German] So, if we're talking about

the drug section on Wall Street Market,

there was everything that the market had to offer.

From grass to MDMA, cocaine, and also, fentanyl, for example.

[in English] The painkiller, fentanyl, is now

the number one killer drug in the U.S.

Fentanyl is 50 times stronger than heroin.

[Juju] The battle against a deadly narcotic.

Fentanyl is taking the opioid epidemic to a new level of urgency.

The connection between fentanyl and opioids in the darknet

can be summed up in two words, which is access and convenience.

You can order your drug of choice on the darknet and it'll be delivered

to your doorstep just like an Amazon product.

Half the deaths from overdoses that we're seeing right now in America

are caused by the synthetic opioid, fentanyl.

It is a significant problem.

As part of my investigation into Wall Street Market

and following the cookie crumbs, I uncovered multiple IP addresses

and learned that they belonged

to the Cyberbunker in Germany belonging to Herman Xennt.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Martin, in German] The servers are secure.

They have a "no matter what" service.

I was never afraid the authorities would catch us.

[Leroy, in English] We ended up sending a-- what we call

a foreign dissemination request to our embassy

to request assistance from the German authorities

and to see if we could get their intrigue on helping us with this investigation.

[music fades]

[Tim, in German] We were often contacted during the investigative process,

including by internationally operating agencies in the USA.

It certainly helps the investigation process

when high-profile players,

like Wall Street Market, are hosted in the data center.

Our approach to the investigation process was to operate with lasting effect.

That doesn't mean achieving quick success by shutting down some narcotics store,

but to take this Cyberbunker offline permanently and to do it with evidence.

But how do we gain access to these servers?

How do we get into this bunker?

[suspenseful music playing]

[server whirring]

[cell phone vibrating]

[Michiel] On the Cyberbunker website,

there was a special page, a volunteer program

where Cyberbunker was searching for people

who would join the Cyberbunker team on a voluntary basis.

We needed really good people.

[cell phone buzzing]

[Michiel] Someone responded to the ad.

Harry was a really great guy.

Young, really nice, spontaneous, friendly and decent too.

He said he'd like, um,

to do something, if possible, such as gardening.

[Michiel] That was interesting to Xennt because Harry didn't want to get paid.

He just asked if he could sleep there.

And for Xennt, that was ideal, of course.

[in English] Harry, the gardener, joined multiple times, drinking beers.

[in German] I think everyone liked him.

So, you could almost call it friendship.

[music fades]

[chuckles]

[in English] Michiel, a volunteer program.

We used to only get people that we already knew for a couple of years

and then we brought them to the base, blindfolded.

And here comes Michiel, "Oh yeah, let's have a volunteer program."

"Yeah, we're so desperate to get a couple of people in, you know."

Why don't you just ask the NSA if they can send some people over,

maybe they'll bring their own coffee as well. [laughs]

[suspenseful music playing]

[voice actor as agent reading prompt]

"On his computer screen,

I could see quite a number of shots from surveillance camera installations

throughout the site."

"Next to him, on the desk, was a large machete."

"I asked him about it."

"The guard just smiled and said, 'That's for uninvited guests.'"

[unsettling music playing]

[voice actor as agent] "To me, the guard often seemed very aggressive."

"He told me that due to his past, he could smell 'pigs.'"

[music fades]

[interviewer, in German] He couldn't though.

Not this pig anyway.

[up-tempo instrumental music playing]

[Jörg] I certainly think it's careless to openly post job ads

for a criminal bunker.

That's how we got a man into the compound itself.

- [birds cawing] - [suspenseful music playing]

[voice actor as agent, in English] "Xennt led me behind the bunker personally

and showed me where I should start work."

"He said I should plant a few spruces because he'd always really wanted

an evergreen spruce wood."

[Tim, in German] Of course, he has to generate empathy,

he has to be able to build trust

and that only works if he's approachable and he acts interested.

[voice actor as agent, in English] "If I enjoyed the work, I'd also

be welcome to stay."

"Michiel sent me a message via WhatsApp."

"On Friday evening, we're having a party and it'd be great if you could come."

"Let me know if you can make it, we'd be delighted if you could!"

"You're one of us and it'd be a real shame if you weren't there."

[unsettling music playing]

[voice actor as agent] "One evening, there was a barbecue."

"The group sat around the campfire for hours,

and each of them had a laptop in their lap."

[keyboard clacking]

[voice actor as agent] "They were working the entire time."

"At least, that's what they said."

[unsettling music continues

[Michiel, in German] It was always nice.

Harry slowly became part of the family.

[Tim] The undercover investigator provided us with valuable information.

For the first time,

we were able to precisely identify who held which role in Cyberbunker.

Who was in charge, what the dynamics were like.

[Martijn, in English] I don't think they are really friends.

I think they need each other.

[suspenseful music playing]

Cyberbunker is freedom, privacy and friendship.

For me.

[in German] The majority of them also lived up there,

were paid a very small salary, so were practically working for free,

just for food and lodgings but...

they were pretty much failed existences.

Apart from the fact that we weren't paid,

there was nothing to complain about, everything was great.

It was really good. I felt at home there and safe, etc.

Well, purposeful.

[tense techno music playing]

[in English] Michiel basically was trying to replace everyone with people

that he brought in through his volunteers' program,

so that he could better basically control them or something.

I don't know. He was up to something and it wasn't in our interests.

[Tim, in German] Although we had already taken many steps,

we had no one with eyes on the bunker itself.

But we wanted to see behind this door.

It would attract attention

if the undercover agent went inside the bunker.

That wouldn't fit his cover story as a gardener.

[voice actor as agent, in English] "On the morning of the 20th of December,

2018, the bunker guard called me."

"He asked me if I knew a cheap cleaning lady

from Eastern Europe."

"They'd been looking for a cleaning lady for a while,

but no one from Traben-Trarbach wanted to work in the bunker."

[in German] It just so happened that we knew someone.

The female undercover investigator's name was Julia.

Part of the cover story was that Julia was Harry, the gardener's, girlfriend.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Michiel] I think we walked through the bunker once,

and explained roughly what had to be done.

She worked, was kind, friendly and warm.

I can't remember anything negative about her whatsoever.

[pensive music playing]

[Jörg] I was somewhat skeptical and not really in favor of it at first.

The dangers of sending a woman, alone, into a hermetically sealed bunker facility

that can't be accessed from outside,

and in which active criminals live, are pretty obvious, I think.

It's not something you're wild about doing.

[foreboding music playing]

[Jörg] She was left to clean the offices unsupervised.

Every floor, every room was accessible to her, unsupervised.

She had a key for every room.

It was strange, they basically didn't want any money at all.

And then Xennt said, "Maybe they're actually just police."

[music intensifies]

[Michiel] But it was implausible.

Harry had been there such a long time already.

And so it was.

[tense music playing]

[camera shutter clicking]

[Tim] There were hundreds of photos...

of the bunker, from different rooms.

Various lists of passwords were photographed.

[Jörg] You could really see where people had their room, where the servers were,

where other equipment was, how things were secured.

[Tim] We had the network node surveillance running,

we had the undercover investigator.

We could see inside the bunker.

The last piece of the puzzle.

[Jörg] We had enough to give us ideas about how to gain access.

[tense music heightens, fades]

[helicopter blades whirring]

[unsettling music playing]

[in English] Xennt has loved bunkers

since he visited a Second World War bunker in Arnhem as a kid.

He wanted to kind of recreate that futuristic feeling where he lived.

Which was in these strange underground caverns.

He was this kind of cyber Peter Pan

who just refuses to grow up.

[automated voice as Xennt] One thing I have learned in the past,

there are many consumers and there are only a few creators.

I am a creator, not a consumer.

Some people describe me as a workaholic, but this is not true.

I simply cannot do nothing.

That's why you will never find me at parties.

I think of them as a waste of time.

Many consumers will destroy the work of creators

without any remorse.

That is why I have decided to create a defensive protection around me.

[electricity buzzing]

[automated voice as Xennt] "Anybody who do not share my ideas

is free to stay out of the way."

[tense music playing]

If half an army outside pops up, that wants to have a fight with you,

then that's perfectly fine,

they can stand there until the Earth comes crashing down.

[laughs] They won't get in.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Tim, in German] We had to make sure that, at the time of the arrest,

there was no one in the actual bunker who could shut down the servers.

[in English] We never left the thing unguarded.

There was always at least someone there.

[drone whirring]

[Jörg, in German] That's why it was clear

that the only option would be to use a ruse

to lure the perpetrators out of the bunker and then arrest them outside the bunker.

[voice actor as agent reading prompt, in English]

[Kevin] The gardener asked us

if we would like to join him to a restaurant

because he inherited some money and he wanted to show his appreciation,

and stuff like that. He wanted to buy us, uh, dinner.

[Tim, in German] Harry called a restaurant

and reserved a table for September 26th at 6:00 p.m.

For us it was end day, of course.

[Michiel] He really wanted everyone to come, I still remember that.

"You all have to come! You have to be there. He has to come too!"

He really did his best to get everyone to come.

[voice actor as agent, in English] "We discussed the evening meal again

and planned who should travel in which car."

"We did a head count."

"Eleven people would be coming to the restaurant."

[Tim, in German] We talked to our undercover investigator

so that he made sure in advance...

I'M IN THE CAR

...that everyone accepted the invitation.

[indistinct chatter over radio]

[synth rendition of "Gymnopédie No.1" playing]

[indistinct chatter]

WHO IS THERE?

EVERYONE

[undercover agent, in English] "We made a toast."

"I thanked them all for letting me be part of the Cyberbunker family."

[indistinct chatter over speaker]

[music fades]

[police officer, in German] Police! Hands up!

Everyone, hands in the air!

- [tense music playing] - [indistinct shouting]

What the... What's going on? What's going on here?

Suddenly, there was a racket outside, there were helicopters flying around.

Everyone was chatting on WhatsApp. "Guys, what's going on in Trarbach?"

There was a flurry of activity.

There was a massive police presence in the local pub.

[indistinct shouting]

[Kevin, in English] That's the moment where you need to have

a lot of self-control, just not to panic.

We were, um, bound by our hands.

We were blindfolded.

They put headphones over our ears.

You're just too focused on what's happening right there,

then you can think about,

"Okay, what is happening on the bunker side of things?"

[tense music continues]

[Tim, in German] Night fell, everything was dark.

You're moving through a terrain that you've never entered before.

[indistinct chatter]

[suspenseful music playing]

A bunker is always only secured from the inside.

It makes sense.

But this has the unfortunate side effect

that if you leave the bunker and no one is inside, it can't be locked.

[drone whirring]

[Kevin, in English] The security that we had in place

at the time of the raid

was a simple padlock connected to the door.

[in German] And that's how it was here too.

- [interviewer] A padlock? - A padlock, yes.

[interviewer] And the special forces managed to open that?

We'd have been able to open it.

[chuckles] It's not that hard to crack a padlock.

[in English] That should never have happened.

That was another thing.

This is not something that we would normally have done.

There's always someone at all of the bases,

and it's never actually fully, um...

like... empty, unguarded.

[tense music playing]

[Tim, in German] There were a multitude of rooms,

arranged in an angular fashion. It was pretty much a square.

The units moved deeper and deeper into the bunker...

and at some point, on the third level, ended up in the server room.

[music intensifies]

You have a rough idea of what you think it will look like,

but what we found on site definitely topped that.

At first the amount of data was overwhelming.

The server room was significantly larger than I expected it to be.

[servers whirring]

[indistinct chatter]

[Jörg] There were also a few empty shelves,

so it was obviously set up for growth.

We could only shut down the servers

once the data on them had been backed up.

[Jörg] So, each server had to be backed up before it could be taken down.

[laughs] It's amazing, shutting down something like that.

[upbeat techno music playing]

[Jörg] Then it was game over.

If you take the servers away from the perpetrators, business is over.

THIS SERVER HAS BEEN SEIZED

The sites were down as soon as the bunker had been taken offline.

[news reporter 1] In the fight against cybercrime,

German investigators...

BLOW AGAINST CYBERCRIME

...have dismantled a major data center for illegal business

on the darknet for the first time.

After almost five years of research,

the investigators achieved an extraordinary blow against cybercrime.

[news reporter 2] All of this ran over 280 servers,

with up to 200 customers on each.

DARKNET DATACENTER TAKEN OFFLINE

[news reporter 1] Through which, amongst other things, drugs

and fake documents were distributed.

IN THE BUNKER OF EVIL

[news reporter 2] A total of 650 police officers were deployed.

The evaluation of the seized data has only just begun.

Our first impression is that the scope is enormous.

POLICE PRESS CONFERENCE ON CYBER-CRIMINAL RING

[news reporter 3] The bunker in Mont Royal, says one investigator,

is a real goldmine for them.

[computer beeping]

In total, two petabytes of data were secured, so two million gigabytes.

[Ed, in English] The police had seized a huge amount of data.

In a way, it was like this Aladdin's cave

of evidence about criminal activity on the internet.

This data started

to throw up interesting new avenues for other investigations.

[Leroy] So, the data we received

from the German authorities,

after the takedown of the Cyberbunker,

was substantial.

[pensive music playing]

[in German] I think the scene

quite underestimated the authorities, and I did too.

The Cyberbunker bust had an enormous impact on the darknet scene,

on darknet drug trading overall.

The volume of stuff circulating

and the quantity of goods, which was just a number to me,

were in reality actually drugs that end up somewhere,

that are produced by people, people who suffer during the production process.

Just the whole extent of it

only hit me after the arrest,

and not straight away, it took a while.

I regret it all.

[Leroy, in English] It directly contributed to over 300 arrests

in 22 countries, spanning three continents.

The fentanyl that was taken off the streets,

just off of this one operation, was enough to kill five million people.

You can only imagine of the four hundred terabytes of data,

what you'll find, what you'll uncover, what crimes you'll potentially stop,

what lives you'll potentially save.

[Jörg, in German] The trial was a challenge, of course.

It was a wide-reaching charge,

it was a technically complex subject.

JÜRGEN BRAUER ATTORNEY GENERAL KOBLENZ

You must first prove the crimes

that have been committed from the computer center

by other individuals,

and then you have to prove that the operators of the data center

were aware of, knew about, and encouraged these acts.

SPECIAL VOLUMES IMPRISONMENT

[news reporter] Herman X. and a few colleagues

have now been declared a criminal organization.

[Jörg] I was pretty sure there would be a conviction.

I still consider the investigation to be watertight,

and I also think the evidence is watertight.

[somber music playing]

ENTRANCE "BUNKER - TRIAL" (PLEASE WAIT HERE)

- [indistinct chatter] - [camera shutter clicking]

[Kevin, in English] Xennt turned completely gray

and was more skinny than he was before.

We made eye contact and we just pointed fingers.

Like, "Are you okay?" He said, "Yes, I'm fine."

But it was kind of shocking to see him in that state.

[news reporter, in German] "Aiding and abetting some 250,000 crimes,"

the indictment reads.

[in English] They made so many accusations.

That's just hoping that something will stick.

[in German] So, you just have to note...

MICHAEL EICHIN MAIN DEFENDANT'S DEFENSE ATTORNEY

...Xennt didn't kill anyone, didn't rob a bank,

didn't steal an old granny's purse.

He supplied a server, or rather multiple servers.

That's what he's accused of, running a data center.

As such, he therefore remains convinced that he's done nothing illegal.

This being seen differently legally is just the way the law works.

However, in terms of evidence, the case was completely well-rounded.

[news reporter] Nevertheless, the Cyberbunker operators deny

knowing about their customers' illegal darknet activities.

[Kevin, in English] The trial in general was a show trial.

Angerer has to keep the show and the parade as high as possible

because what would otherwise happen when it would be evident

that the use of force wasn't necessary, if everybody would be free,

if the trial turned out to be nothing?

Plus, the guy wasted like his entire budget

for the coming ten years or something

on the silly raid with 650 Playmobiles

and extra blauw licht and, uh, and a helicopter and a tank.

[news reporter, in German] Senior public prosecutor Angerer spent

nearly five years on the investigation.

Can he really prove the defendants knew what criminal services were operating?

Once, at the beginning of a trial day,

Xennt turned around to the other defendants

and held his finger up to his lips.

Probably to order silence.

DARKNET BUNKER: DEFENDANTS REMAIN SILENT

[Jörg] It astonished me

that they didn't testify at all and preferred to sit in jail.

[in English] He won't win that court case.

There's simply no way in hell he will ever win that court case, but...

[in German] I decided to testify shortly after I was arrested.

[tense music playing]

[Michiel] I think that Xennt should have stood up,

he should have explained

what was going on there.

That's why I made these notes,

just writing down everything I could remember.

My whole testimony took six days of hearings.

And I assumed, well, I knew nothing about any of it,

so I can't get imprisoned for that, it will probably turn out okay.

MANAGER CLAIMS TO NEVER HAVE SEEN DRUG TRAFFICKING CHARGES

Mr. Rugers, and this was shown in our interrogations,

plays down his role in this entire set of offenses as being insignificant.

[Jörg] I don't know how Xennt managed to get these people.

He obviously has some charisma, people follow him.

Rugers defended him to the end, even in the main trial.

He acknowledged the offenses, but always claimed that Xennt is actually a good guy.

That contradicts itself, that doesn't make sense at all.

Xennt always told me everything, but the fact he was sending messages

saying that it's okay for marijuana to be sold through the servers,

he never ever told me that.

So, he apparently left things out

and that's why he could rely on my involvement.

For five years.

I can't believe that the second in command

in the Cyberbunker hierarchy,

actually, didn't know what was going on. I just can't accept that.

In the trial against the operators of the so-called Cyberbunker

in Traben-Trarbach, Rhineland-Palatinate,

a verdict has now been reached.

[news reporter 1] The defendants were convicted

of forming a criminal organization,

but not for aiding and abetting the internet crimes of their customers.

[news reporter 2] The Dutch citizen and seven co-defendants

will receive prison sentences of up to five years and nine months.

BIG FALL OF AN IT GENIUS

DARKNET BOSS MUST SERVE ALMOST SIX YEARS IN PRISON

VERDICT IN THE CYBERBUNKER TRIAL

[melancholy music playing]

[Xennt] Testing, one, two, three. Testing, one, two, three.

One, two, three, four, five, six. Testing, one, two, three.

Uh, I can't do it without looking at the notes.

[pensive music playing]

"My trial was not fair and so neither was the judgement."

"It hasn't made us guilty of any crimes at all."

"We had nothing to hide."

"Nothing I could have said would have mattered."

"I was already convicted before I was arrested."

"The Chamber had to justify this long procedure somehow,

so someone had to take responsibility."

"I will not be intimidated or obstructed by the German judiciary,

the press or anyone else."

"I am on the side of all those who have been deprived their fundamental rights,

their professional and private lives for the sake of communication."

"I believe privacy is a fundamental right."

"Everyone has a right to privacy."

"The more communication evolves,

the easier it becomes for third parties to eavesdrop and spy on us."

"I am sure people like me will have a big impact on the future internet."

"The problem, however, is whether humanity is ready."

Next question, please.

[interviewer] Do you see yourself as a criminal?

No, not really.

I think he is a criminal,

in a different form than someone who commits murder or another crime,

but I don't think he has a problem with what he did.

[interviewer, in English] Do you consider yourself a criminal?

[tense music playing]

[Ed] One of the original Cyberbunker crew

was not arrested that day, Sven Kamphuis.

He wasn't in the Cyberbunker, he was somewhere else entirely,

but he was not even arrested afterwards.

[Martijn] Why is that guy still out there?

Is he the kind of person that talks about things to other people,

which gives him the kind of privileges to stay out? I don't know.

[Ed] I remember asking Sven whether he had escaped arrest

because he had been an informant on the rest of the group

and he told me, "We don't negotiate with terrorists."

Uh, their law does not apply to us.

We don't stand above their law, we stand completely outside of their law.

It's their law, not our law. [breathes deeply]

There may be some overlapping basic values,

such as not murdering thy neighbor and that sort of stuff.

But other than that, our law is quite a bit different from theirs.

If you are... If you break a law in a country,

then you're liable to be arrested and convicted for breaking that law.

So, it helps if you think

that you're the prince of a sovereign nation,

of, you know, Cyberbunker.

[ominous music playing]

[Martijn] It's difficult to really understand his values because...

they don't exist in my world.

He has his own visions and takings on certain subjects.

Quite a sinister individual, I think.

[ominous music continues]

[Jörg, in German] Their advert stating no child pornography

or terrorism would be hosted

was fulfilled by the perpetrators with regard to terrorism.

We found no terrorism on the servers.

In terms of child pornography, it's a bit different.

[in English] There was said in court multiple times

that they found, um, things on the servers of Cyberbunker

like child pornography, but it's totally not okay.

[Jörg, in German] Mr. Kamphuis had a server

on which linked child pornography had been operating.

That means I can go through links,

so pretty unambiguous links, like pre-teen, that kind of stuff,

meaning pre-teenager age, and see the corresponding photos.

[tense music playing]

[in English] It's not actual rape.

Um, it's like going...

Um...

If you take a photo of a bank robbery

and you print the picture of the bank robbery in the paper, right?

Um, is this picture of the bank robbery, is that a crime by itself?

No. It's a picture of a crime that already happened.

[in German] I'm aware of Mr. Kamphuis' absurd notions

with regard to child pornography. What he overlooks, of course,

is that behind every photo, every child pornography photo,

is active abuse, the abuse of the child.

That's quite different from a photo of a bank robbery.

In that, news about a bank robbery is shared.

Child pornography images are not shown to say there's been child pornography.

It's a completely different intention behind it.

And you would have to be pretty sick to make that comparison.

He wants to live his freedom and children should suffer for it.

He's not interested in children's freedom.

And that is the problem with people like him.

They talk about freedom, when they just mean their own.

[interviewer] Do you think that Mr. Kamphuis will remain free

for some time?

I don't understand the question.

[pensive music playing]

"In any data center where there are customer servers,

customers could use their servers for criminal purposes."

"You don't even notice it."

"There is nothing you can do about it."

That's simply wrong.

When Mr. Xennt says he didn't know anything,

I not only don't believe him, but he's lying.

We have email correspondence

in which Mr. Xennt clearly tells customers

about how he protects them from prosecution.

Um, so he knew exactly what was going on.

[Xennt] "I have many plans for the future."

"I know that there is no one else who wants to or can do what I want to do."

"You cannot stop me."

"I will still achieve my goals."

"Everything is ready. I just have to go home."

"I want to, and I will eventually, be able to realize my vision for a better world."

"No one can stop me."

Thank you for the interview.

[pensive music continues]

[tense music playing]

[Bärbel] Traben-Trarbach was in a state of shock,

when all that came to light.

It's something that stays with you for a while.

[Winfried] Shock, and...

horror.

What went on there was huge.

[Hajo] It was a relief in a way.

Now it's burst, now the bubble has burst.

Now we finally know what happened up there.

It's good that it came to an end.

It was bad enough.

[Patrice] It still hurts today to think of the suffering that was sown with it.

How, in today's world, it's actually incredibly easy

for someone to do the same thing in another place,

with the same success, success that has negative consequences on people.

[melancholy music playing]

[Ed, in English] When he'd sublet a portion of

the first Cyberbunker to another group

and he claimed not to know what they were doing there,

an ecstasy lab was found.

And then many, many years later,

when the police, you know, raided the second Cyberbunker

and they found these servers, the defense of Xennt to the Cyberbunker crew was,

"Well, we don't know what was on those servers."

And it struck me that it was the same defense,

you know, "Something bad was happening but we didn't know what."

[sinister music playing]

I don't think Xennt has another way of doing business than in the dark.

And he will continue his activities because I think that's part of his life.

[Guido] He will do it again. Absolutely.

He has to find another bunker.

There's no question in that.

Well, the story of Cyberbunker isn't about success or failure,

it's about what will happen in the future.

So, we have to see what the future holds because the story might not be over yet.

[ominous synth music playing]

[automated voice as Xennt] I am a creator.

Not a consumer.

I will make the world a better place to live in.

I have already recreated little parts of it.

- As soon as I have the possibility... - [audio glitches]

...I will start improving the world at a much larger scale.

[ominous synth music continues]

[music intensifies]

[music concludes]