Europol has announced the arrests of 288 people suspected of buying and selling drugs on the dark web following the takedown of the underground marketplace “Monopoly Market” in December 2021.
The operation, codenamed “SpecTor,” involved law enforcement agencies from nine countries, including the US, UK, Austria, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Brazil, and Switzerland.
More than EUR 50.8 million (USD 53.4 million) in cash and virtual currencies, 850 kg of drugs, including over 258 kg of amphetamines, 43 kg of cocaine, 43 kg of MDMA and over 10 kg of LSD and ecstasy pills were seized, as well as 117 firearms.
According to Europol, the shutdown of the Monopoly Market in 2021 was a result of a law enforcement operation carried out by German police. The agency says that intelligence gathered by the German authorities served as the basis for hundreds of national investigations, which eventually led to the arrests of hundreds sellers and buyers who engaged in tens of thousands of sales of illicit goods.
The arrests took place in the US (153), the UK (55), Germany (52), the Netherlands (10), Austria (9), France (5), Switzerland (2), Poland (1) and Brazil (1).
Europol notes that the operation SpecTor was even more successful than previous operations codenamed ”DisrupTor” (2020) with 179 and ”Dark HunTor” (2021) with 150 arrests.
