Law enforcement agencies from nine countries have arrested 150 suspects selling drugs on the dark web, Europol and the US Department of Justice announced today.
He was part of a joint operation called Dark HunTOR, and the suspects were arrested in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Australia, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland.
Officials said the arrests stemmed from an investigation following the shutdown of DarkMarket , the world's largest dark web marketplace for illegal goods, on January 21.
"At that time, the German authorities arrested the alleged market manager and confiscated the infrastructure, providing researchers around the world with a collection of evidence," Europol officials said today.
The data was shared with other law enforcement agencies in the context of Operation Dark HunTOR, which DOJ Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco described in a press conference today as "the largest law firm in the world".
Monaco also said most of the suspects arrested today were drug dealers selling or buying opioids from DarkMarket.
Following the arrests, authorities said they seized more than 26,7m euros in cash and fictitious coins, 234kg of drugs and 45 firearms. The seized drugs include 152 kilograms of amphetamine, 27 kilograms of opioids and over 25.000 ecstasy pills.
In addition, the Italian authorities used the data from the closure of DarkMarket to locate and close DeepSea and Berlusconi Market, two similar markets targeting Italian users.
Both markets had over 100.000 listings for illegal products. Italian officials say they have arrested four administrators and seized 3,6m euros in cryptocurrencies.
George is still wondering what he is doing here….
