Latest news with #OperationRapTor
Forbes
23-05-2025
- Forbes
Dark Web Down — Hundreds Arrested As FBI Strikes
Operation RapTor hits Dark Web hard. Anything that disrupts the criminal dark web is a good thing. Especially when those underground marketplaces, only accessible using specialized browser software and by those with highly vetted criminal credentials, are home to the sale of 19 billion stolen passwords, organized and prolific cybercrime gangs, and ransomware initial access brokers. But there's more to the dark web than passwords and malware; there's also a global trade in the most dangerous of recreational drugs. The FBI has now coordinated a strike against some of the leading dark web drug dealers selling everything from cocaine and methamphetamine, right through to Fentanyl. With 270 arrests, the FBI is determined to take this deadly part of the dark web down. Here's what you need to know. Don't get me wrong, the so-called dark web does a lot of good in providing a safe space online for the persecuted and at risk when the surface web could be too dangerous a place for them to gather. However, sadly, it's also one of the most evil areas of the internet, and that's not a term I use lightly. When you get arms dealers, drug dealers, pedophiles and people traffickers all in the one place, not to mention the cybercrime operators trading in stolen data and account access, it is hard to come up with a more appropriate word. Although by its very nature, the dark web operates under the radar to some degree, that doesn't mean it is out of reach of law enforcement, as Operation RapTor has just proven. Operation RapTor has, in effect, taken a significant portion of the dark web down. Specifically, that which deals in deadly drugs such as fentanyl. 'In Operation RapTor, participating law enforcement agencies in the U.S., Europe, South America, and Asia arrested 270 darknet vendors, buyers, and administrators,' the FBI confirmed. In all, more than 317 pounds of fentanyl were seized, and given that 2 pounds could kill around 500,000 people according to the FBI, that's no small potatoes. "By cowardly hiding online, these traffickers have wreaked havoc across our country and directly fueled the fentanyl crisis and gun violence impacting our American communities and neighborhoods," FBI Director Kash Patel said. "But the ease and accessibility of their crimes ends today." 'We're trying to keep people safe,' Aaron Pinder, unit chief of the Hi-Tech Organized Crime Unit at FBI Headquarters, responsible for the running of the FBI's Joint Criminal Opioid and Darknet Enforcement team, said. 'We have become very adept at identifying the individuals behind these marketplaces, no matter what role they're in, whether they're an administrator or a vendor, a money launderer, or indeed a buyer.' Like most such criminal infrastructure disruptions, this won't be the end of dark web drug dealing. Far from it, sadly. However, by taking out big players, dark web admins and buyers included, it will surely slow things down for a while. And that, my friends, has got to be a good thing.
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Yahoo
EU police agency coordinates international raid on dark web
A global operation coordinated by the European Union's Europol law enforcement agency against criminals using the dark web has resulted in 270 arrests in 10 countries, Europol reported on Thursday. Officers in the United States, EU member states, the United Kingdom, Brazil and Switzerland seized more than €184 million ($208 million) in cash and cryptocurrencies, more than 2 metric tons of drugs, more than 180 firearms, 12,500 counterfeit products and more than 4 tons of illegal tobacco. "Known as Operation RapTor, this international sweep has dismantled networks trafficking in drugs, weapons, and counterfeit goods, sending a clear signal to criminals hiding behind the illusion of anonymity," Europol said. Of the 270 arrests, 130 were in the US, followed by Germany with 42 arrests. European Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration Magnus Brunner said: "This operation is proof of how criminal gangs operate today: offline and online, internationally and locally, using technology to their full advantage." Coordinated action of the kind provided by Europol was essential for countering this, Brunner added.
Epoch Times
22-05-2025
- Epoch Times
FBI Says Global Operation Led to 270 Arrests Targeting Dark-Web Drug Trafficking
The FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) on Thursday announced that 270 people were arrested and that hundreds of pounds of fentanyl were seized as part of an operation targeting drug traffickers on darknet websites. The arrests were made in Austria, Brazil, France, Germany, the Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States under 'Operation RapTor,'
