For example, in November 2023, while operating in an undercover capacity on Incognito Market, a law enforcement agent purchased and received several tablets purported to be oxycodone. According to court documents and statements made in court, Incognito Market was an online narcotics bazaar that started on the dark web in October 2020. “We will continue to monitor, investigate and bring to justice those who misuse the internet in a quest for profits with reckless disregard for the risk to public health and safety.” “This record-breaking operation sends a clear message to every trafficker hiding behind a screen—your anonymity ends where our global reach begins,” said Acting Director Todd Lyons of U.S. This critical strike against dark web networks fueling the fentanyl crisis marks a proud moment in our ongoing effort to protect communities worldwide.”
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(The name is a pun on Tor, the anonymity browser that enables dark web access.) Last year’s Operation DisrupTor netted a similar number of arrests and double the drug seizures. Operation Dark HunTor isn’t the first international bust of its kind. It added that the platform’s infrastructure in the Netherlands was taken offline and that a 30-year-old German who was the administrator had been arrested in Barcelona. BKA has not mentioned if the server administrators or any of the platform’s core operators were identified or arrested during the action.
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According to a newly filed superseding indictment, Thomas Pavey and Raheim Hamilton, owned and operated Empire Market from 2018 to 2020, during which time they facilitated approximately four million transactions between vendors and buyers valued at more than $430 million. U.S. agencies like the FBI, DEA, IRS-CI, and HSI worked alongside Europol, the U.K.’s NCA, and law enforcement from over a dozen countries. TRM has identified structured withdrawals from the market to personal wallets and then to services with less stringent KYC.
Security Issues
For example, the FBI has noted that criminals on Tor routinely reuse usernames or expose device details, allowing investigators to trace them.
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Around the same time, Dutch police had secretly taken over Hansa Market, then shut it down publicly on July 19, 2017. About the AuthorMohammed Khalil is a Cybersecurity Architect at DeepStrike, specializing in advanced penetration testing and offensive security operations. If you want to test your organization’s resilience or hunt down hidden vulnerabilities before criminals do, DeepStrike can help. In practice, no market in the past decade has survived indefinitely.
Dark Web Drug Trafficking
In Ohio, members of a group known as PillCosby were charged with mailing out over a million pills laced with fentanyl. But even if law enforcement is playing an eternal game of Whac-A-Mole, it’s at least gotten extremely proficient at whacking. The EDTF encompasses a standalone Cyber Division and is on a mission to disrupt, dismantle or render ineffective organizations involved in the laundering of proceeds of narcotics trafficking and other financial crimes. This case was, in part, investigated by HSI New York’s El Dorado Task Force, a money laundering task force comprised of more than 200 law enforcement personnel representing approximately 35 federal, state and local law enforcement and regulatory agencies. Empire quickly attracted new vendors and buyers and its reliability and features, coupled with low vendor bonds – that is, the cost of signing up as a vendor – a responsive moderator team, and the familiarity of the interface, turned it into a leader.
Arrested In Massive Global Dark Web Takedown
“This unprecedented operation is a testament to the power of global partnership and the unwavering dedication of our team,” said Chief Guy Ficco of IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI). “Operation RapTor shows that the dark web is not beyond the reach of law enforcement,” said Head of Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre, Edvardas Šileris. “These predators who peddled poison on the dark web might have thought they are untouchable — hiding behind screens, pushing fentanyl, fueling overdoses, and cashing in on misery. “By cowardly hiding online, these traffickers have wreaked havoc across our country and directly fueled the fentanyl crisis and gun violence impacting our American communities and neighborhoods.
“The FDA is committed to continuing its work to disrupt and dismantle the illegal sales of drugs on the dark web, where such sales far too often have tragic consequences,” said Deputy Director Chad Menster of the Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Criminal Investigations (FDA OCI). This operation was about protecting innocent people from predatory criminals who profit from violence, addiction, and fear. “Thanks to the unwavering efforts by ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Europol and our international partners, we’re cracking the code of the so-called ‘safe spaces’ for cybercriminals—they are in our sights and we’re not backing down.” “Through close cooperation and intelligence sharing, officers across three continents identified and arrested suspects, sending a clear message to those who think they can hide in the shadows. Instead, they must gain access to multiple, hyper-secure markets and then regularly monitor this wide array of smaller, highly localized platforms.
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- “The FDA has undertaken strategic and impactful actions to prevent drug overdoses and reduce deaths and is committed to using all of our cyber-resources to shed light on the darkest corners of illicit medical supply chains for the health and safety of all Americans.”
- The Monopoly Market takedown was one of the largest law enforcement actions taken against a darknet marketplace.
- A global law enforcement operation has resulted in the seizure of $200 million in cash and digital assets and the arrest of 270 individuals across 10 countries, the U.S.
- Five defendants were arrested today on a 10-count federal superseding indictment alleging their participation in a multimillion-dollar drug trafficking organization (DTO) that used luxury private shipping companies to ship via…
In May, law enforcement arrested another 270 suspects following an international joint action known as ‘Operation RapTor’ that targeted dark web vendors and their customers from ten countries. “With this takedown, law enforcement has taken out one of the dark web’s longest-running drug markets, cutting off a major supply line for some of the world’s most dangerous substances,” said Jean-Philippe Lecouffe, Europol’s Deputy Executive Director of Operations, on Monday. One Archetyp Market moderator and six of the marketplace’s highest vendors were also arrested in Germany and Sweden. German police have shut down what they claim to be the country’s largest illegal dark web marketplace and arrested a suspected administrator of the site. The agency, based in The Hague, built intelligence based on evidence from Germany, which it said seized the marketplace’s “criminal infrastructure” in December 2021.
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As DOJ noted, the conspiracy involved laundering darknet proceeds through exchanges and peer-to-peer brokers. While this week’s takedown recalls the 2013 shutdown of Silk Road, the evolution of darknet commerce is stark. Incognito, like other modern darknet platforms, operated entirely on cryptocurrency—primarily Bitcoin and Monero.
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The best month for the darkweb market was this June, when the value of brokered sales peaked at $6.3 million. TRM Labs reports that the market had enabled transactions of nearly $100 million worth of Bitcoin but the figure does not include Monero (XMR) cryptocurrency, which requires special conditions to track and accounts for at least two-thirds of all transactions on Abacus. Historically, there have been “silent” takedowns that weren’t accompanied by announcements from the authorities, to allow investigations to continue unobstructed and gather more incriminating evidence or identify accomplices.
The Nemesis Market was launched in 2021 as a new marketplace to purchase illegal drugs and narcotics, stolen data and credit cards, and various cybercrime services related to ransomware, phishing, and distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. That’s the day that German police seized Wall Street Market, the popular underground bazaar that gave international authorities everything they needed to upend the dark web drug trade. At the same time, financial enforcers like OFAC sanctioned individuals running darknet markets—including Iranian national Behrouz Parsarad of Nemesis—demonstrating how financial tools are being brought into alignment with traditional law enforcement. One of the most high-profile targets of Operation RapTor—the largest coordinated global crackdown on darknet drug trafficking to date—was Incognito Market, a dark web narcotics marketplace that operated with remarkable scale, anonymity, and apparent impunity.
