Security News Police arrests 270 dark web vendors, buyers in global crackdown

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

Content source

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/police-arrests-270-dark-web-vendors-buyers-in-global-crackdown/

Police arrested 270 suspects following an international law enforcement action codenamed 'Operation RapTor' that targeted dark web vendors and customers from ten countries.

National authorities in Europe, South America, Asia, and the United States have also seized over €184 million ($207M) in cash and cryptocurrency, more than 2 tonnes of drugs (including amphetamines, cocaine, ketamine, opioids, and cannabis), and over 180 firearms.

"A global law enforcement operation coordinated by Europol has struck a major blow to the criminal underground, with 270 arrests of dark web vendors and buyers across ten countries," Europol said on Thursday.

"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."

Law enforcement identified the suspects (many linked to thousands of sales on illicit platforms) using intelligence collected after the takedowns of multiple dark web marketplaces, including Nemesis, Tor2Door, Bohemia, and Kingdom Market.

Most of the arrested suspects were apprehended in the United States (130), Germany (42), the United Kingdom (37), France (29), and South Korea (19), while 13 others were detained in the Netherlands, Austria, Brazil, Spain, and Switzerland.

Police arrests 270 dark web vendors, buyers in global crackdown

Police arrested 270 suspects following an international law enforcement action codenamed 'Operation RapTor' that targeted dark web vendors and customers from ten countries.

www.bleepingcomputer.com

 

[Sorrento]

I wish someone would raid and close down the jokers who run 'Canadian Pharnacy' (sic) down, as my junk has so much crap from them I find it a pain to sift through to find kosher emails that accidentally end up in Junk

 

[Wrecker4923]

Operation RapTor

This is mostly not a Tor compromise or correlation analysis, though. The riches came from seizing the servers and correlating the databases' data with other seizures'. The government obviously will have emails, addresses, and financial transaction data. It's mostly police work, but it's unclear how much effort was put into cracking Tor's anonymity.

 

[Wrecker4923]

my junk has so much crap from them I find it a pain to sift through to find kosher emails that accidentally end up in Junk

Why not start using email aliases or plus addresses? Filtering for good emails may get better.

 

[Sorrento]

Why not start using email aliases or plus addresses? Filtering for good emails may get better.

I have several emails most unaffected by this junk, unfortunately I still have to use this one email I've used it a very long time so need to leave it open, these emails are likely to be data gathering / phishing as no one in their right mind would buy from such spammers, but they probably do??

 

[bazang]

but it's unclear how much effort was put into cracking Tor's anonymity.

Everyone should realistically and predicably assume that all nation-states are capable of compromising Tor's anonymity. Anyone can create a Tor relay or node and the compromise of the Tor circuit through all means available is a continuous effort from both sides - the good guys and the bad guys.

Since international law enforcement can capture it all and then correlate it all because of treaties and international laws that permit full access to be used against criminal activities, many times it does not even need to intercept and decrypt encrypted communications.