Dark Web VS DoJ: Takes down Market Place for Illegal Goods

• 35 vendors were arrested after an investigation by Department of Justice against a marketplace on Dark web on which people sold weapons and highly addictive drugs.
• An agent from Homeland Security Investigation posed as a buyer to catch the Dark Web vendors.
• This operation was one of its kind which was able to successfully arrest the vendors of Dark web.

Dark Web is a frightening place for everything you can imagine, both legal and Illegal items. This dark place is made up of a series of websites that are only accessible through Tor browser, which provides a comforting anonymity to users. Today it is a massive arena which was started in 2011 by a Gawker profile of the Silk Road, the first marketplace on the internet to sell almost anything.

The idea of this marketplace gave chills to the Law enforcement agencies, which were threatened with a place where one could sell weapons, drugs, hacking tools to anyone who is willing to shed a few cryptocurrencies. For years, Police organization worldwide has been trying to put down this marketplace for apparent reasons.

As per BGR, 35 individuals were arrested by The Department of Justice (DoJ) for selling illicit goods. The report mentioned that the department was also successful at seizing cryptocurrency, drugs, and weapons worth $23.6 million. It was a result of a coordinated national operation that took roughly more than a year. This was the first undercover operation of its kind that targetted the illicit goods on the dark web, BGR further reported.

DoJ published a Press release soon after the arrest. The press release states that an agent from Homeland Security Investigations was used as a money launderer who involved himself in a series of Dark Net Transactions, involving cryptocurrency - the dark web money. These transactions, which were later investigated by the department, lead to 35 arrests of the alleged vendors of Dark Web.

The cliché of posing as criminals by the feds seems to still work for DoJ and apparently helped them here in tackling illegal online sales. Often, the investigators pose as the administrators of various darknet websites and gather information on different vendors and people who run this marketplace. In 2013 there was a similar raid by the federal authorities to shut down a drug Marketplace called Silk Road. Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the Silk Road was sentenced to life back in 2015.

The Dark Web is operated on the Tor Network in which data is accessed through the slim veils that mask the IP addresses of users. Plus, the transactions on Dark Web are carried via Cryptocurrency, which makes it further complicated to track the sales of the illicit items. Despite these complications and hurdles, special agents were able to track back 35 individuals who sold highly addictive drugs for profit.

If it could be done once, it could be done several times in the future. And maybe someday, the Internet will be a safe place.

What do you think about this arrests of 35 individuals by Department of Justice? Do you think it is a step forward towards safe internet? Do let us know in the comments. Also, to get instant tech updates, Follow TechNadu’s Facebook page, and Twitter handle.