Several key criminals have been caught in a police sting operation in a crackdown on the dark web that resulted in the seizure of € 26 million ($ 30.17 million) in cash and cryptocurrencies.
More than 150 people were arrested in the UK and Europe.
The high-profile targets were involved in buying or selling illegal products online in one of the largest operations so far focused on the dark web, the European crime agency Europol said.
Operation Dark HunTor also recovered millions of euros in cash and bitcoins, in addition to drugs and weapons. The investigation stems from a German-led police operation earlier this year that wiped out the world's largest darknet market.
Dark HunTor "was made up of a series of separate but complementary actions in Australia, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States," said The Hague-based Europol.
In the United States alone, police arrested 65 people, while 47 were detained in Germany, 24 in Great Britain, and four in Italy and the Netherlands, among others.
Some of the detainees "were considered targets of great value" by Europol.
Italian police also closed the DeepSea and Berlusconi markets, which the agency said were home to more than 100,000 illegal products.
In January, German police shut down the DarkMarket online marketplace, which allegedly facilitated the sale of drugs, stolen credit card data, and malware.
Europol said the arrest of the suspected operator, captured near the German-Danish border at the time, and the seizure of criminal infrastructure provided "investigators around the world with a trove of evidence."
German prosecutors said DarkMarket came to light in the course of a major investigation against the Cyberbunker web host, located in a former NATO bunker in southwestern Germany.
Since then, Europol's EC3 European Cybercrime Center has been compiling intelligence packages to identify key targets.
"The goal of operations like this is to alert criminals operating on the dark web [that] the police community has the means and the global partnerships to expose them and hold them accountable for their illegal activities, "said Europol Deputy Director of Operations Jean-Philippe Lecouffe.
The secret darknet includes websites that can only be accessed with specific software or authorizations, ensuring the anonymity of users.
Updated: October 27, 2021, 12:12 pm
