Approximately 150 individuals buying or selling drugs or weapons on the dark web were arrested globally in one of the largest operations ever against this hidden part of the internet, according to officials from European police agency Europol and the U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday. Europol also reported the seizure of millions of euros in cash and bitcoin, along with drugs and weapons during this operation named "DarkHunTOR."
Europol explained that the operation was based on a series of separate but integrated steps taken in Australia, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. This operation follows the dismantling of the "DarkMarket" platform in January, led by German police, which was presented at the time as the "largest" buying point in the electronic black market.
In the United States, about 65 people were arrested, while 47 were detained in Germany, 24 in the UK, four in Italy, four in the Netherlands, and others. Several of those arrested are considered "high-value targets" by Europol. Additionally, security forces seized €26.7 million in cash and cryptocurrencies, along with drugs including 25,000 ecstasy pills and 45 firearms.
In Italy, police also closed down two illegal markets called "DeepSea" and "Berlusconi," which together offered "over 100,000 listings for illegal products," according to Europol, which conducted the operation in coordination with the European judicial cooperation unit Europol.
A "treasure trove of evidence"
Europol noted that the arrest in January of the alleged operator of the "DarkMarket" platform, a 34-year-old Australian at the German-Danish border, "provided investigators globally with a treasure trove of evidence." The dismantling of the "DarkMarket," where various drugs, counterfeit currency, stolen or forged credit card information, unregistered phone chips, and even malware were sold, is associated with a September 2019 operation executed in Germany against a significant dark web site named "Cyberbunker," as reported by the prosecutor's office at that time.
This data center, established in a former NATO bunker in southwestern Germany, is suspected of having hosted several drug-selling platforms along with servers used for trafficking images involving child exploitation or cyberattacks. Since then, the European Cybercrime Center at Europol has been gathering information to identify key targets, according to the agency.
The dark web, a parallel version of the internet where user anonymity is guaranteed, has faced increasing crackdowns in recent months from international police forces. Europol's Assistant Director of Operations, Jean-Philippe Lecouffe, stated on Tuesday that "the goal of such operations is to tell criminals operating on the dark web that the law enforcement community has the means and international partnerships to uncover them."
Additionally, U.S. Assistant Attorney General Lisa Monaco noted in a press conference in Washington that in the U.S. segment of the operation, 90% of the 200,000 pills seized contained counterfeit opioids and other extremely dangerous drugs such as fentanyl. A French cybercrime police officer told Agence France-Presse that the operation lasted for months. In France, for instance, "three individuals, two men and a woman, were arrested in June." Criminal assets worth €35,000 were confiscated. The three were managing a dark web site called "Le Monde parallèle" or "The Parallel World," with one acting as manager, another as coordinator, and the third responsible for securing transactions.
The officer stated, "On this site that hosted 1,800 members, buyers and sellers exchanged drugs, forged documents, stolen credit cards, and hacking software." Rolf van Wegberg, a researcher in cybercrime at Delft University of Technology, believes that the operation represents a shift in police activity against suspected criminals active online. He told reporters at a Dutch official channel that "in the past, these types of operations aimed at arresting operators of such market spaces, but we are now seeing police forces targeting key sellers."
