At the end of several months of a worldwide hunt carried out in the greatest secrecy, the police and gendarmerie services of nine countries have just carried out a spectacular strike at the very heart of the "
Darkweb
".
There, in the abyss of the Web where traffickers thought they could prosper anonymously, specialized agents arrested no less than 150 people involved in the sale or purchase of tens of thousands of goods and services corresponding to all facets of organized crime.
Led under the coordination of Europol, the operation dubbed "
Dark HunTOR
" led to the seizure of more than 26.7 million euros in cash and cryptocurrency, 45 firearms intended to commit robberies and murders as well as 234 kilos of drugs. Among the drugs confiscated were 150 kilograms of amphetamine, 27 kilograms of opioids and 25,000 ecstasy pills. Alongside the American FBI, the National crime agency (NCA) of the United Kingdom, the Guardia di Finanza in Italy or the German BKA (Bundeskriminalamt), the French have hired the gendarmes of the Center for the fight against digital crime ( C3N) and police officers from the Central Information Technology Crime Office (Oclctic).
"
High added value targets
"
The blow of the butt given by the operation "
Dark HunTOR
" is the continuation of a first "
descent
" carried out among the pirates of the web and which had led, last January, to the dismantling of DarkMarket, the largest black market online. never uncovered in the depths of the web.
Used to negotiate drugs, false papers or even counterfeit money, the platform had identified around 2,400 sellers and nearly 500,000 users.
In total, around 20 servers, mostly based in Moldova, had enabled some 320,000 transactions to be carried out.
Read alsoTrafics, blackmail, espionage: cyber-judges against the darkweb
With the support of Europol, the German services had arrested at the German-Danish border the alleged operator of this site, a 34-year-old Australian since then placed in pretrial detention, and seized all his criminal infrastructure, offering a fantastic harvest. of clues and avenues to explore for hundreds of investigators around the world. From the "
HQ
" of the European police agency based in The Hague, the cybercrime center (EC3) has been in full swing. "
With around a hundred agents, including experts in decryption or cryptocurrency among the best in the world, this specialized unit has enriched the information collected by providing corresponding e-mails or even "wallet" keys. that is to say the portfolios linked to virtual currency accounts
, confides to Figaro the general of the gendarmerie Jean-Philippe Lecouffe, deputy executive director of Europol.
In total, we have sent to the police of each country concerned no less than 380 “packets” of well-crafted information, knowing that each arrest leads to searches which make it possible to seize material and obtain data to enrich our bases
”.
A bit like pop-ups, investigation windows open as the police find clues, explore new cases and the traffickers fall into the chain like a game of dominoes. In France, the first three "
targets
" have been arrested but, we warn Europol, "
the investigations are continuing
". Without waiting, 65 sellers and customers of the “
darkweb
” have already been arrested in the United States, 47 in Germany, 24 in England and four in the Netherlands. “
All are considered by Europol as 'high added value targets' because of the sensitivity, the volume of goods traded but also the position occupied by the suspect in the criminal chain that needs to be broken.
», Breathes General Lecouffe, specifying that«
whoever buys for example a batch of Glock automatic pistols or several kilos of cocaine becomes de facto a priority objective
».
100,000 pirate announcements on the "
DeepSea and Berlusconi
" site
As part of “
Dark HunTOR
”, the Italian finance police pulled out of the game by putting an end to the activities of two black market platforms, one of which, called “
DeepSea and Berlusconi
”, boasted of having put online more than 100,000 ads. Three site administrators were also arrested in the Peninsula, where multiple confiscated electronic items are being exploited. "
The interest of an operation like the one we have just carried out is to be able to file criminals operating on the darkweb," insists Edvardas Sileris, head of the Cybercrime Center (EC3) of Europol. The pooling of the forces of order makes it possible to unmask them and to incriminate them criminally, even ifhe thought he was protected in this kind of space.
""
The darkweb is less and less dark,
assures General Lecouffe
.
Thanks to cyber-patrols, the use of undercover agents, decryption or even the cross-checking of information, we can go there, to give real spotlight and hit the criminals in the most remote places
” .
For its part, justice is also making great strides: doing the black market on the "
dark
" refers to prison in most Western countries.