Europol's Operation Saffron shut down First VPN on May 19–20, 2026, seizing 33 servers, arresting its Ukrainian administrator, and exposing the identities of at least 506 users to law enforcement agencies across multiple countries. According to Europol's official announcement , the service ran infrastructure across 27 countries and was actively used by at least 25 ransomware gangs. The "no-logs, no questions" promise lasted exactly until the evidence pile got too big to ignore — then five years of coordinated police work came crashing down at once. TL;DR — Key Takeaways First VPN operated servers across 27 countries and was used by at least 25 ransomware gangs before its May 2026 seizure by Europol. Operation Saffron — a five-year investigation led by French and Dutch police with Europol and Eurojust — resulted in the arrest of First VPN's Ukrainian administrator. Authorities seized 33 servers and took down domains including 1vpns.com, 1...
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