An global regulation enforcement action has led to the arrest of 150 people worldwide on suspicion of acquiring or promoting illicit goods on the dark web.
Procedure Dark HunTor involved the combined hard work of police forces in 9 diverse nations around the world who carried out a collection of independent but complementary actions, coordinated by Europol and Eurojust.
Subsequent actions in Australia, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, 234kg of prescription drugs and 45 firearms were being seized together with extra than $31m in funds and digital currencies.
Bundled in the drug haul were 152.1kg of amphetamine, 21.6kg of cocaine, 26.9kg of opioids, 32.5kg of MDMA, in addition to more than 200,000 ecstasy, fentanyl, oxycodone, hydrocodone, and methamphetamine pills, and counterfeit medication.
The European Union Agency for Regulation Enforcement Cooperation (Europol) said that it considers the 150 alleged distributors and customers arrested in the operation to be “Superior-Value Targets” who it suspects engaged in tens of hundreds of illegal products gross sales.
The bulk of the arrests ended up carried out in the United States (65), Germany (47), and the United Kingdom (24).
In a statement released now, the United States Division of Justice Place of work of General public Affairs stated that as a result of Operation Dark HunTor, darknet seller accounts had been identified and attributed to actual men and women advertising illicit goods on energetic marketplaces, as well as inactive darknet marketplaces these as Aspiration, WallStreet, White House, DeepSea, and DarkMarket.
“Operation Dark HunTor stems from the takedown previously this yr of DarkMarket, the world’s then-biggest unlawful marketplace on the dark web,” reported Europol.
“At the time, German authorities arrested the marketplace’s alleged operator and seized the felony infrastructure, supplying investigators across the entire world with a trove of evidence.”
Europol explained that ever considering the fact that DarkMarket’s takedown, its European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) experienced been “compiling intelligence offers to identify the key targets.”
Prior to, but in aid of, Procedure Dark HunTor, authorities in Italy shut down the DeepSea and Berlusconi dark web marketplaces, which featured around 40,000 commercials for unlawful items. 4 alleged directors have been arrested, and €3.6m in crypto-currencies have been seized in coordinated Italian–US functions.
Some parts of this article are sourced from:
www.infosecurity-journal.com