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According to Europol, 150 suspects were arrested by authorities all over the world in one of the largest-ever sting operations on the dark web for buying and selling illegal goods online.
Operation DarkHunTOR recovered more than a million euros in cash and Bitcoin, as well as drugs and guns, the European Union’s police agency announced on Tuesday.
The raid operation was the result of a German-led police sting earlier this year when police shut down the “world’s largest” dark web marketplace, allegedly operated by an Australian citizen to distribute and sell drugs, stolen credit card numbers, and malware.
DarkHunTOR, “comprised several separate yet complementary operations in Australia, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the UK, and the US,” according to Europol.
There have been 65 arrests in the US alone, while 47 have been made in Germany, 24 in the UK, and four each in Italy and the Netherlands.
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The arrested individuals “were viewed as high-risk targets” by Europol.
Additionally, the police seized € 26.7 million (MAD 281 million) in cash and cryptocurrencies, 45 weapons and guns, and 234 kilograms of drugs, including 25,000 Ecstasy pills.
Italian authorities were forced to close the “DeepSea” and “Berlusconi” marketplaces, “which together boasted over 100,000 announcements of illegal products,” said Europol, which coordinated the operation in collaboration with Eurojust, its twin judicial agency.
“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, even in areas of the dark web,” according to Jean-Philippe Lecouffe, Europol Deputy Director of Operations.
The dark web consists of a collection of hidden websites that can only be accessed through specialized web browsing software. Law enforcement agencies have a hard time tracking criminal activity on the internet due to the dark web’s anonymous and private features.
It can also be used to evade government censorship and protect whistleblowers.
