Europol on Tuesday announced that security forces in nine countries closed a dark web drugs marketplace, and confiscated over $53 million in cash and virtual currencies from 288 suspects.
The EU's law enforcement agency based in The Hague said that additionally 850 kilograms of drugs and 117 firearms were seized.
"The seized drugs include over 258 kilograms of amphetamines, 43 kilograms of cocaine, 43 kilograms of MDMA and over 10 kilograms of LSD and ecstasy pills," the source informed.
The operation, codenamed SpecTor, comprised of separate complementary actions in Austria, Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Brazil, the United States and Switzerland.
"Europol has been compiling intelligence packages based on troves of evidence provided by German authorities, who successfully seized the marketplace’s criminal infrastructure in December 2021," Europol informed.
Investigations to identify others behind dark web accounts are still ongoing, it said. Europol sources added that as law enforcement authorities had gained access to the lists of buyers, "thousands of customers across the globe are now at risk of prosecution as well."
Europol Executive Director Catherine De Bolle said the operation proved the effectiveness of cooperation and demonstrated to criminals that they could be identified, "even on dark web."
