Avalyan is charged with one count of distribution of cocaine, one count of distribution of MDMA, and one count of distribution of distribution of methamphetamine. Gevorgyan is charged with one count of possession with intent to distribute MDMA and one count of possession with intent to distribute ketamine. Grigoryan is charged with one count of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine. Nersesyan is charged with three counts of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, one count of possession with intent to distribute cocaine, and one count of possession with intent to distribute MDMA. All four defendants are charged with one count of conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute cocaine, methamphetamine, ketamine, and MDMA (Ecstasy). Coin Edition is an independent digital media company that focuses on news from the blockchain and crypto space.
The Public
The operation targeting the “Monopoly Market” is the latest major takedown of sales platforms for drugs and other illicit goods on the so-called dark web, a part of the internet hosted within an encrypted network and accessible only through specialized anonymity-providing tools. Following the threads from the seized data, the two agencies apprehended the drug dealers. They seized $6.5 million in crypto and cash, 500kg in drugs—274kg of which was seized in the US, and the 63 guns. Authorities arrested 123 North Americans, including two in Canada, and a further 58 in Europe; in Germany, authorities arrested 42. In 2023, the New York Police Department (NYPD) Intelligence Bureau, which predominantly handles counter terrorism cases, received a tip about two people in New York City involved in manufacturing and selling ghost guns.
Office Of The Chief Data Officer
They used darknet markets, including Monopoly, Versus, ASAP, AlphaBay, Wall Street, Archetyp, Bohemia, Empire, Dream and White House. Archetyp’s takedown might make headlines, but it won’t stop the trade of illicit drugs on the dark web. It should force us to think about where harm is really happening online and whether current strategies are looking in the wrong direction. Despite the fact Archetyp had clearly raised the bar on security on the dark web, Operation Deep Sentinel – a collaborative effort between law enforcement agencies in six countries supported by Europol and Eurojust – took down the market. Between 11 and 13 June, a series of coordinated actions took place across Germany, the Netherlands, Romania, Spain, Sweden, targeting the platform’s administrator, moderators, key vendors, and technical infrastructure. Around 300 officers were deployed to carry out enforcement actions and secure critical evidence.
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47-year-old Rushan Lavar Reed and 28-year-old Celeste Nicole Reed were participating in a long-term trafficking conspiracy that illegally distributed ‘pharmacy grade, not homemade pressed pills,’ according to the U.S. In fact, it is routine for individual’s participating in these dark web communities, par for the course of engaging in the markets. Revenues for the fraud shops on the right side of the chart declined, suggesting their dependence on UAPS for payment infrastructure. The chart below shows fraud shops that performed well after the UAPS takedown, indicating that the customer migration was swift, and favored longstanding, trusted fraud shops like Vclub and Bankomat.
Dark Web Marketplace Owners Charged With Facilitating $430M In Illegal Goods Sales
These actions were part of a coordinated effort among US government agencies and foreign counterparts to combat Russian illicit finance. In September 2024, the US Secret Service’s Cyber Investigative Section, Netherlands Police, and the Dutch Fiscal Intelligence and Investigation Service (FIOD) seized web domains and infrastructure linked to UAPS, PM2BTC, and Cryptex. In addition to various benzodiazepines, stimulants, and psychedelics, one longstanding China-based research chemical manufacturer also sells nitazenes. The vendor’s listing of a protonitazene analog boldly states that the compound has a potency 20x greater than that of fentanyl, as seen below. Once received by the buyer, the compound could be pressed into counterfeit pills, like M30s, and further distributed to end consumers.
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- Although CEXs remain a stable destination in the DNM ecosystem, the pattern of sending funds to them shifted in 2024, as illustrated in the chart below.
- One China-based pill press manufacturer which advertises on clearnet business-to-business (B2B) websites has on-chain ties to drug vendors on Abacus Market.
- The site had attracted more than 600,000 users worldwide, raking in at least €250 million ($290 million) in transactions.
- After the UAPS infrastructure takedown, we observed a swift decline in on-chain activity from UAPS counterparties, indicating that many fraud shops relied on this infrastructure to process customer payments.
- While 2024 was likely a record year for crypto crime revenue overall, darknet market (DNM) and fraud shop inflows fell, with DNMs receiving just over $2 billion in BTC on-chain, and fraud shops $225 million.
Since its inception in 1992, the task force has been responsible for the seizure of approximately $600 million and more than 2100 arrests. Operation SpecTor was a collaborative initiative across JCODE members, including the Department of Justice, FBI, DEA, USPIS, HSI, IRS-CI, ATF, Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), and the FDA’s Office of Criminal Investigations. This operation was aided by non-operational supporting participation from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and U.S. Local, state, and other federal agencies also contributed to Operation SpecTor investigations through task force participation and regional partnerships.
Upon visiting the site, users were met by a splash page and graphic interface, which is pictured below. With these stolen credentials, the suspects purchased ghost gun parts and tools from a variety of legitimate websites, which they used to build ghost guns with a 3D printer, and sell for cash. A Manhattan district attorney successfully used this evidence to bring charges against one of the suspects. China-based precursor manufacturers mark the beginning of the synthetic drug supply chain.
Operation RapTor was a global, coordinated effort by law enforcement in the United States, Europe, South America, and Asia to disrupt fentanyl and opioid trafficking, as well as the sales of other illicit goods and services, on the darknet, or dark web. JCODE and Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) continue to compile intelligence packages to identify entities of interest. These leads allow U.S. and international law enforcement agencies to identify darknet drug vendors and buyers, resulting in a series of coordinated, but separate, law enforcement investigations, reflected in the statistics announced today.
German Police Shutter Country’s Largest Dark Web Market
The Reactor graph below shows this vendor’s connection with drug vendors on Abacus Market. As reported last year, some drug shops have been outsourcing services like website hosting and payment processing. IKlad.biz and Klad.cc, shown in the chart above, are examples of those infrastructure providers.
In 2020, he was named alongside his colleagues as a Pulitzer Prize finalist in explanatory reporting. Previously, he worked at the New York Times and volunteered as a first responder for refugees arriving on the shores of Lesvos. Three 35-year-old men from Glendale and a 43-year-old man from Sherman Oaks were indicted April 1 and also accused of 116 overt acts to further the alleged conspiracy, authorities said. Servers used to support the Crimenetwork marketplace were also taken down, according to the BKA. At its peak, Nemesis counted over 150,000 user accounts and 1,100 seller accounts worldwide, with about 20% of them being based in Germany. John is a veteran Chicago journalist with experience in print, television and online platforms and has been with the CBS Chicago team since 2007.
Dark Web’s Longest-standing Drug Market Seized In Multinational Effort
Investigators seized the Nemesis Market platform’s server infrastructure in Germany and Lithuania on Wednesday, as well as cryptocurrency worth 94,000 euros ($102,000), Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office said in a joint statement with Frankfurt prosecutors. In total, law enforcement officers seized 47 smartphones, 45 computers, narcotics, and assets worth €7.8 million from all suspects during Operation Deep Sentinel. Operation SpecTor spanned nine countries and brought down the illegal dark web marketplace Monopoly Market. One defendant in California led an organization that bought fentanyl in bulk, pressed it into pills with methamphetamine and sold millions of pills to thousands of people on the dark web, he said. Listings included offerings of prescription medication that was falsely advertised as being authentic.
Scale And Reach Of Archetyp Market
From at least April 2021 until May 2023, McDonald and others conspired to sell fentanyl and cocaine via multiple darknet marketplaces. HSI New York leads and directs all operational and administrative activities of the El Dorado Task Force (EDTF). The EDTF is the premier money laundering task force in the nation and is comprised of more than 200 law enforcement personnel representing approximately thirty-five (35) federal, state, and local law enforcement and regulatory agencies. The EDTF encompasses a standalone Cyber Division as part of an effort to stay abreast of emerging criminal threats and in keeping with current and future investigative priorities. The mission of the EDTF is to disrupt, dismantle, or render ineffective, organizations involved in the laundering of proceeds of narcotics trafficking and other financial crimes. Since its inception in 1992, the Task Force has been responsible for the seizure of approximately $600 million and more than 2100 arrests.
Teresa McGrath of Sunland-Tujunga and Mark Chavez of downtown Los Angeles pleaded guilty to trafficking drugs and both face minimum prison sentences of 15 years. In Operation DisrupTor (a play on words; Tor is a privacy-first browser that acts as a gateway to the dark web), law enforcement used information obtained from the takedown of the darknet market, Wall Street Market, in May 2019, to trace criminals. According to court documents, for six years, the married couple operated an online storefront called “MrsFeelGood” to illegally distribute a variety of narcotics across the United States. Europol said in a statement on Monday that between June 11 and 13, 300 officers were deployed to carry out a ‘series of coordinated actions’ across Germany, the Netherlands, Romania, Spain and Sweden targeting the platform’s administrators, vendors and technical infrastructure.
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THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Authorities in the U.S. and Europe arrested nearly 300 people, confiscated over $53 million, and seized a dark web marketplace as part of an international crackdown on drug trafficking that officials say was the largest operation of its kind. Those arrested had sold drugs on a variety of darknet marketplaces, among them AlphaBay, Empire and DeepSea. A massive international law enforcement operation has seen one of the longest-standing dark web marketplaces finally taken offline. Law enforcement confiscated criminal servers and seized data that could help to identify users of the platform, the BKA said.
The defendants then allegedly shipped the drugs throughout the United States via the United States Postal Service. This shift poses unique challenges for law enforcement, who must adapt traditional monitoring methods. The fragmentation of darknet markets means that law enforcement agencies can no longer focus their efforts on a few large, easily identifiable targets. Instead, they must gain access to multiple, hyper-secure markets and then regularly monitor this wide array of smaller, highly localized platforms. Further confounding efforts, these multiple markets are often scattered across different regions and jurisdictions, requiring significant international cooperation to drive operations.
