Experience the power of The DarkBlue Intelligence Suite and get proactive in your fight against cybercrime. Request a free trial today and strengthen your ability to track and disrupt illicit activities on the dark web. The far-reaching success of Operation RapTor hinged on extensive cooperation between numerous agencies and international partners. In the U.S., crucial support came from the DEA, FBI, IRS-CI, HSI, USPIS, and the FDA OCI. On the international front, Europol and national police forces across ten countries were vital to the effort. For the first time, FBI agents from all the bureau’s field offices also visited buyers to tell them about the overdose danger of pills sold online, which are often disguised to look like prescription drugs.
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.
Ghost-Tapping And The Chinese Cybercriminal Retail Fraud Ecosystem
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. Along with its listings for large pill press machines, the vendor does not hide the sale of Oxycontin and Xanax TDP die kits, which are used to press counterfeit pills. The vendor accepts BTC and XMR, and analyzing its on-chain exposure to regional CEXs and DNMs reveals that it serves customers worldwide, including in the United States, Canada, Sweden, and Russia. 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.
US Government Shared Services
- The operation, which took place between June 11 and 13, also targeted the platform’s moderators, top vendors and technical infrastructure, with coordinated raids conducted across Germany, the Netherlands, Romania, Spain and Sweden, according to a statement by Europol.
- Among them was Iranian national Behrouz Parsarad, indicted in Ohio and sanctioned by the U.S.
- The longest-standing dark web drug market worth £200million has been dismantled following a years-long investigation with its alleged mastermind arrested in Barcelona.
- State, local, and other federal agencies also contributed to Operation RapTor investigations through task force participation and regional partnerships, as well as the multi-agency Special Operations Division.
In addition, financial institutions and other persons that engage in certain transactions or activities with the sanctioned individual may expose themselves to sanctions or be subject to an enforcement action. The prohibitions include the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any designated person, or the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person. Such signatures are intended to confirm that vendors still have access to their accounts and have not been arrested or compromised. While the method has its limitations, HugBunter argued that failure to provide a cryptographic signature alongside continued account activity could be telling. On the Reddit-style dark web forum known as “Dread,” users are trying to determine which vendors were compromised by the operation, Straight Arrow News found. The dark web is a collection of sites that are not indexed by search engines and can only be viewed with specialized web browsers designed to provide privacy and anonymity.
Archetyp Was One Of The Dark Web’s Biggest Drug Markets A Global Sting Has Shut It Down
BKA has not mentioned if the server administrators or any of the platform’s core operators were identified or arrested during the action. According to the indictment, unnamed customers, including one who lived in Northern Illinois, placed multiple orders for counterfeit money. This is all alongside the countless cases of celebrities and social media influencers caught up in crypto pump-and-dump schemes, where hype is used to artificially inflate the price of a token before the creators sell off their holdings and leave investors with worthless tokens.
Challenges For Law Enforcement
For information concerning the process for seeking removal from an OFAC list, including the SDN List, please refer to OFAC’s Frequently Asked Question 897 here. For detailed information on the process to submit a request for removal from an OFAC sanctions list, please click here. OFAC’s Economic Sanctions Enforcement Guidelines provide more information regarding OFAC’s enforcement of U.S. sanctions, including the factors that OFAC generally considers when determining an appropriate response to an apparent violation. The market’s takedown came after years of effort from Germany, Netherlands, Romania, Spain, Sweden and the United States. Drug Enforcement Administration and Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation, the statement said. The charges in the superseding indictment are punishable by a maximum sentence of life in federal prison.
Financial Markets, Financial Institutions, And Fiscal Service
According to Europol, the resulting takedown took place between June 11 and 13, with the goal of “targeting the platform’s administrator, moderators, key vendors, and technical infrastructure” across the European continent. “Around 300 officers were deployed to carry out enforcement actions and secure critical evidence,” the agency added. Archetyp Market, a site on the dark web that sold illegal drugs, has been shut down after police in Europe arrested its administrator. “It provided us with all the information which led to the identification of those arrested today,” says Europol press officer Claire Georges.
Latest News
The fact that its graphical user interface was built to resemble that of AlphaBay was purposely done to instill a sense of familiarity for users who had become accustomed to AlphaBay. The Dutch national police’s Cyber Enabled Crime Team was involved in the operation, code-named SpecTor. Investigators received leads from local police departments investigating overdose deaths, including that of a 19-year-old man in Colorado who loved learning languages and building his own computers, according to FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate.
Since 2021, Abacus Market’s revenue has increased substantially, and in 2024, it more than doubled, growing by 183.2% YoY. This increase may be due in part to the closures of top DNMs, the shift to the exclusive acceptance of XMR by other active markets, and delistings of XMR by popular centralized exchanges. The below graph shows an increase in Abacus sales (in BTC) following the closure of ASAP Market in July 2023, and a further increase following some CEXs delisting XMR. Historically, DNMs have been known for the illicit drug trade, but in recent years have differentiated themselves with unique service offerings. Since last year’s Crypto Crime Report, the top performing Russia-based DNMs have held steady, but Kraken DNM overtook Mega as the leading DNM by annual revenue in 2024.
The court also sentenced fifteen accomplices to anywhere from eight to 23 years in maximum-security penal colonies. The action built upon the previous takedowns of dark web marketplaces like Kingdom Markets, Incognito, Nemesis, Bohemia and Tor2Door. In May, a separate international operation led to the arrest of 270 people and the seizure of over $200 million, 144 kilograms of fentanyl or fentanyl-laced substances, and 180 firearms. “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,” commented Europol’s Deputy Executive Director of Operations Jean-Philippe Lecouffe. Today’s action, taken pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 14059, which targets proliferators of narcotics and their means of production, underscores the United States’ commitment to combatting all means of supplying narcotics to the United States.
Brazil Cracks Down On Illegal Cattle, JBS Among Penalized Meatpackers
In exchange for listing and selling narcotics as a vendor on Incognito Market, each vendor paid 5% of the purchase price of every narcotic sold. That revenue funded Incognito Market’s operations, including paying “employee” salaries and for computer servers. To facilitate these financial transactions, Incognito Market had its own “bank,” which allowed its users to deposit cryptocurrency on the site into their own accounts. After a narcotics transaction was completed, cryptocurrency from the buyer’s account was transferred to the seller’s account, less the 5% fee that Incognito collected. While China-based vendors are frequently referenced as the source of precursors for dangerous synthetic drugs, their involvement in machinery sales is also an important aspect of the drug supply chain.
Silk Road, AlphaBay, WallStreet and Monopoly Market are all familiar names in the digital graveyard of the dark web. Before these dark web marketplaces were shutdown, they sold a range of illegal products, from drugs to firearms. A series of law enforcement takedowns in the last few years have shaped the 2024 drug and fraud ecosystems.
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.
- From June 11 to 13, 2025, law enforcement authorities in Germany, the Netherlands, Romania, Spain, Sweden, and the United States executed a series of synchronized actions targeting the platform’s administrator, moderators, top vendors, and core infrastructure.
- The chart below shows this counterparty decline, as well as a drop in crypto flows across the fraud shop ecosystem.
- After logging in with a unique username and password, users were able to search thousands of listings for narcotics of their choice.
- Usually these products are sent to the buyer by post and money transferred to the seller through the escrow system.
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. In years past, these organizations were more overt in their display of such products, openly advertising on mainstream B2B websites. Depending on the severity of the chemical, some manufacturers still follow this practice. While not all are pictured above, in total, we found 16 vendors either selling or sourcing drug material from Abacus and purchasing production supplies from this China-based vendor.
