Global Raids Targeting Dark Web Sees Over 400 Domains Seized, 17 Arrests
Over 400 domain names used by websites known as the “dark web”, which can’t be found via search engines or typing in the domain name, have been seized in raids across Europe and the United States. The websites are known to sell drugs, guns and hitmen.
The domains were seized by law enforcement agencies in 16 European countries and the US in an operation coordinated in The Hague to conduct the operation from Europol’s Joint Cybercrime Action Taskforce operations room as part of an operation that has so far taken six months.
The biggest target in the operation was Silk Road 2.0, but another 413 illicit services based on the Tor network were closed too, Troels Oerting, head of the European Cyber Crime Centre (EC3), told the Guardian.
“Cloud Nine, Hydra, BlueSky, Outlaw Market and Alpaca are some of the other names on the police hitlist that are out of action,” according to the Guardian.
Operation Onymous as the operation was code-named was coordinated by Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3), the FBI, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and Eurojust. It resulted in 17 arrests of vendors and administrators running these online marketplaces and more than 410 hidden services being taken down. In addition, bitcoins worth approximately US$1 million, €180 000 in cash, drugs, gold and silver were seized. The dark market Silk Road 2.0 was taken down by the FBI and the U.S. ICE HIS, and the operator was arrested.
How the law enforcement agencies were able to locate and penetrate the networks is unknown at this stage. According to a report in Wired, “in its criminal complaint against Benthall, for instance, FBI agent Vincent D’Agostini writes merely that in May of 2014 the FBI ‘identified a server located in a foreign country believed to be hosting the Silk Road 2.0 website at the time,’ without explaining how it bypassed Tor’s protections. The sheer number of Tor-hosted sites affected by the takedown raises questions about whether law enforcement officials may have found new vulnerabilities in Tor’s well-tested anonymity shield.”
“The sites typically operated on the Tor network, which is designed to conceal the I.P. addresses of the computers being used,” according to another report, this one in the New York Times.
“Today we have demonstrated that, together, we are able to efficiently remove vital criminal infrastructures that are supporting serious organised crime. And we are not ‘just’ removing these services from the open Internet; this time we have also hit services on the Darknet using Tor where, for a long time, criminals have considered themselves beyond reach. We can now show that they are neither invisible nor untouchable. The criminals can run but they can’t hide. And our work continues….”, says Troels Oerting, Head of EC3.
“Our efforts have disrupted a website that allows illicit black-market activities to evolve and expand, and provides a safe haven for illegal vices, such as weapons distribution, drug trafficking and murder-for-hire,” says Kumar Kibble, regional attaché for HSI in Germany. “HSI will continue to work in partnership with Europol and its law enforcement partners around the world to hold criminals who use anonymous Internet software for illegal activities accountable for their actions.”
“Working closely with domestic and international law enforcement, the FBI and our partners have taken action to disrupt several websites dedicated to the buying and selling of illegal drugs and other unlawful goods. Combating cyber criminals remains a top priority for the FBI, and we continue to aggressively investigate, disrupt, and dismantle illicit networks that pose a threat in cyberspace”, says Robert Anderson, FBI Executive Assistant Director of the of the Criminal, Cyber, Response and Services Branch.
Tor is an acronym for The Onion Router, a free network designed to anonymise real Internet Protocol (IP) address by routing traffic through many servers of the Tor network. Tor is used by a variety of people for both illicit and licit purposes, a fact that has also been acknowledged in the complaint against Ross William Ulbricht, accused of being the main administrator of the original Silk Road.
