Security News > 2021 > October > Police arrest 150 dark web vendors of illegal drugs and guns

Law enforcement authorities arrested 150 suspects allegedly involved in selling and buying illicit goods on DarkMarket, the largest illegal marketplace on the dark web when it was taken down in January 2021.

The arrests are the result of a coordinated international operation dubbed Dark HunTOR that lasted ten months and involved police forces and investigators from nine countries.

Dark HunTOR investigations are still ongoing, with investigators still working on identifying more individuals behind DarkMarket accounts.

Italian authorities also shut down the Berlusconi and DeepSea dark web marketplaces as part of the same operation, arresting four administrators and seizing €3.6 million in cryptocurrencies.

"The point of operations such as the one today is to put criminals operating on the dark web on notice: the law enforcement community has the means and global partnerships to unmask them and hold them accountable for their illegal activities, even in areas of the dark web," said Jean-Philippe Lecouffe, Europol's Deputy Executive Director of Operations.

Europol's European Cybercrime Centre was the one that facilitated the information exchange between Dark HunTOR investigators in the framework of the Joint Cybercrime Action Taskforce.

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