Was AG Scholtes hit by ransomware?

AG Scholtes was listed by the Play ransomware operation (Netherlands), and stolen data was published on the group's leak site. Darkfield tracks this disclosure with the original leak post, screenshot and group context.

Who is the Play ransomware group?

Play is a ransomware operator tracked by Darkfield. See the full operator dossier for its known victims, sectors targeted, IOCs and leak-site infrastructure.

What data was leaked in the AG Scholtes breach?

Play published data attributed to AG Scholtes. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

← All victims

A.G. Scholtes BV

listed as AG Scholtes · Claimed by Play · listed 4 hours ago

Today

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedJul 16, 2026
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Play
Status: Data leaked
Country: Netherlands
Sector: Manufacturing
Listed on leak site: Jul 16, 2026

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

A.G. Scholtes BV is a family-owned beef and meat wholesaler based in Den Haag, Netherlands, operating for over 100 years. The company supplies quality beef and other meats to butchers, wholesalers, hospitality, meat processors, and supermarkets across Europe, with a processing capacity of 750 tons per week.

Industry: Meat Wholesale & Distribution
Address: Elbe 11, 2491 BT Den Haag, Netherlands

Attack summary

Severity: medium — Disclosed status indicates data_published, but no proof files, data inventory, or specific sensitive data categories are evident from the available leak post excerpt. The absence of detailed proof or data description suggests limited transparency from the threat actor, warranting medium severity pending fuller disclosure details.

The Play ransomware group claims to have attacked AG Scholtes and published data. No specific details are provided in the leak post excerpt regarding what data was exfiltrated or whether encryption occurred.

medium

What the group claims

Netherlands

Sources

Victim sitewww.agscholtes.nl
Leak posthttp://j75o7xvvsm4lpsjhkjvb4wl2q6ajegvabe6oswthuaubbykk4xkzgpid.onion/topic.php?id=oecn6NG9SQYNLc

Source

Indexed 4 hours ago

This page surfaces a public ransomware disclosure indexed by Darkfield. Original posts come from the operator's own leak site; we cross-check against ransomware.live, RansomLook and RansomWatch where applicable. Share this URL freely.

Is this your supplier? Your competitor? You?

Pro plans monitor your domain, corporate emails, and crypto wallets across every new ransomware leak-site post, breach dump and Telegram callout — alerts within 5 minutes.

Disclosure context

About Play

**Overview:** Play (also known as PlayCrypt) is a financially motivated ransomware group that emerged in late 2022, conducting targeted attacks against organizations across multiple sectors with a focus on financial extortion. **Origin & Affiliation:** The group's country of origin remains unclear based on public reporting, though they appear to operate independently rather than as a traditional ransomware-as-a-service model. **Attack Methodology:** Play ransomware operators typically gain initial access through compromised Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) credentials and exploit valid accounts, then move laterally through networks using tools like Cobalt Strike before deploying their custom ransomware payload. The group employs double extortion tactics, stealing sensitive data before encryption and threatening to publish it on their leak site if ransom demands are not met. **Notable Campaigns:** According to CISA advisories, Play has targeted over 300 entities globally since its emergence, with significant impacts on critical infrastructure sectors including healthcare, education, and government services, though specific ransom amounts and individual victim details vary in public reporting. **Current Status:** Play remains an active threat as of 2024, continuing to target organizations primarily in North America and Europe according to ongoing security researcher observations and law enforcement warnings. The group has been linked to 1,321 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on November 26, 2022; most recent post July 16, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Also tracked as: PlayCrypt.

Timeline of this disclosure

July 16, 2026AG Scholtes listed by Playon the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by Play

Play has been linked to 1,321 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Play dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Manufacturing sector, which has 3,681 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, AG Scholtes is reported in Netherlands, a country with 42 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Play means AG Scholtes appeared on a ransomware extortion site and data attributed to it has been published. If this is your organisation, or a supplier you depend on, the priority is to confirm the intrusion and contain it before the window to act closes.

Engage your incident-response team and preserve forensic evidence before remediating — do not wipe affected systems first.
Force a password reset and revoke active sessions for exposed accounts; rotate any credentials, API keys or certificates that may have been in the stolen data.
Assess regulatory notification duties (GDPR, NIS2, sector regulators) — many carry a 72-hour reporting clock from awareness.
Report the incident to your national CERT, NCSC-NL (Netherlands), as required for your jurisdiction.
Monitor for the data appearing on Play's leak site and across paste and breach channels, and brief downstream partners who may be exposed through you.

How we know this. Darkfield monitors public ransomware leak sites continuously, archiving every new disclosure and the data later released against the victim. Each entry on this page is sourced from the operator's own publication and cross-checked against complementary OSINT feeds (RansomLook, ransomware.live, RansomWatch). We do not collect or host stolen data — only the metadata, timestamps and screenshots needed to make the public disclosure searchable and accountable. Records here are corrected when the original post is edited, retracted, or merged with another disclosure.