THE HAGUE (Reuters) – At the very least 150 individuals have been arrested by European and U.S. authorities after a joint crackdown on merchants of medication, weapons and different illicit items on darknet e-commerce websites, Dutch media reported Tuesday citing police company Europol.
Money and cryptocurrency price 26.7 million euros ($31 million) and 234 kilograms of medication have been additionally seized, in line with Dutch broadcaster KRO-NRCV.
“This operation proves that we will attain (criminals on the darkish internet) even when they suppose they’re hiding someplace, they can’t be positive we can’t be there at one second to knock on their door”, Europol’s deputy govt director of operations, Jean-Philippe Lecouffe informed the broadcaster.
Europol wouldn’t touch upon the report, however referred to a press convention set for 10AM native time (1400 GMT) in Washington with the Division of Justice.
In keeping with the Dutch media 65 U.S. nationals have been arrested, together with 47 Germans, 24 Brits and a handful of Dutch, French, Swiss and Bulgarian nationals.
The operation centered on sellers and patrons on the darknet slightly than the individuals operating the websites as in earlier crackdowns.
Darknet markets are e-commerce websites designed to lie past the attain of normal search engines like google and yahoo. They’re well-liked with criminals, as patrons and sellers are largely untraceable.
In January this 12 months, Europol introduced it had taken down a web-based market referred to as “DarkMarket” that offered unlawful medication in an operation led by German legislation enforcement businesses.
($1 = 0.8593 euros)
(Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg, modifying by Bart Meijer and Christina Fincher)
