[slowmotiony]

The Interpol literally took over a darknet market (Dream) using stolen admin credentials and continued to run the site for months to gather intelligence on vendors and buyers. Not the same thing but if LE is willing to operate a major illegal drug trafficking operation then surely hacking a few VPN companies doesn't seem impossible.

[michaelmrose]

Great example however unlike constantly hacking all VPN providers this is potentially deemed legal kind of like under cover cops doing controlled buys to trace drug networks. Also unlike hacking all the VPNS. It's also pretty high benefit for a very finite and controllable risk.