Europol and US authorities said they had seized tens of
millions of euros in cash and virtual currencies as they rolled up an online
underground trading market in the 10-month Operation Dark HunTOR.
They said major dealers of counterfeit drugs, often tainted
with dangerous substances like fentanyl, on the dark Web had been arrested.
Most of the arrests, which took place over several months,
were in the United States, with 65 people; Germany, 47; and Britain 24. Others
came from Bulgaria, France, the Netherlands, Italy and Switzerland.
The arrests came after a similar joint operation led by the
Germans seized the largest illegal marketplace on the dark Web, DarkMarket, in
January.
By taking over DarkMarket, authorities were able to break
through the layers of anonymity that protected traders and trace transactions
to their origins.
"The point of operations such as this is to put
criminals operating on the dark Web on notice (that) the law enforcement
community has the means and global partnerships to unmask them and hold them
accountable for their illegal activities," Europol deputy director of
operations Jean-Philippe Lecouffe said.
US officials said in a press conference in Washington that
the illegal drug trade had moved more to the dark Web in the COVID-19 pandemic.
They said that besides straightforward sales of illegal
narcotics like cocaine, amphetamines, and ecstasy, that many of the drugs being
sold were purportedly common prescription drugs like Adderall, Xanax and
Oxycontin but were laced with other dangerous substances like fentanyl and
methamphetamine.
High-value targets
US Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said that of more
than 200,000 pills seized in the US side of the operation, 90 percent contained
"counterfeit opioids or other narcotics" like extremely dangerous
fentanyl.
Speaking in Washington, Lecouffe said most of those arrested
were high-value targets, "among the most prolific or sensitive actors on
the dark Web."
The US Justice Department said the US arrests included a sizable
operation in Houston, Texas, that took anonymous orders online and shipped
drugs to buyers around the country through the mail.
In all, the operation netted EUR 26.7 million in cash and
virtual currencies, as well as 45 guns, and 234 kilograms (516 pounds) of
drugs, mostly amphetamine, ecstasy, cocaine, and opioids.
In parallel to the Operation Dark HunTOR, officials said
Italian police had shut down two similar underground marketplaces dubbed
"DeepSea" and "Berlusconi."
Together the Italian marketplaces boasted over 100,000
announcements of illegal products, said Europol, which coordinated the
operation together with its twin judicial agency Eurojust.
The arrest of three people in France in Operation Dark
HunTOR led to the closure of another dark Web trading venue, called "Le
Monde parallele," or "Parallel World," according to a French
police official.
Rolf van Wegberg, cybercrime investigator at the TU Delft
university, said the operation signalled a shift in investigations of online
crime.
"This kind of operations in the past looked at
arresting the controllers of these marketplaces. We now see police services
targeting the top sellers," he told the Dutch KRO-NCRV public broadcaster.
Monaco told reporters that the operation showed there was no
real protection for illicit trade on the dark Web, where anonymity is
supposedly made safe by the TOR browser.
"Those who are peddling illegal drugs and thinking they
are safe behind layers of digital anonymity: my message to you is simple. There
is no dark Internet. We can and we will shine a light," she said.
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