Four Dark Web Drug Sellers From Northampton UK Sentenced to Prison

• Four men from Northampton, UK, received lengthy imprisonment sentences for selling drugs on the dark web.
• The arrests started in 2019 and were completed last year, while the court recently decided on the penalties.
• The drug operatives made over £2.7million in cryptocurrency by selling drugs on the ‘Empire Market.’

A Northampton court has sentenced four individuals, namely Vladislavs Cvirkovics, 28, Filip Hmelnicenko, 31, Denis Potapenko, 28, and Edgars Pirants, 32, to a combined total of 34 years in prison over charges of drug selling. The Northamptonshire police were investigating the defendants since June 2019, when two of them were interrogated after drugs were found in a storage facility that was linked back to them.

Following the seizure of their electronic devices, the police figured that the duo was selling drugs on the now-defunct ‘Empire Market’ under the username “MartinLutherUK.”

Potapenko and Pirants, who were later connected to the arrested duo of Hmelnicenko and Cvirkovics, didn’t hesitate to continue their operation when their peers fell in the hands of the law enforcement authorities. Using the same username on the same marketplace, the other two criminals continued selling drugs online and sending them to buyers over post mail services.

In February 2020, Potapenko was finally traced back and arrested in his home in Hood Street, and in March 2020, the police arrested Pirants in Cotton End.

In total, the four men made about £2.7million from the dark web operation, selling many kilos of cocaine, MDMA, crystal MDMA, amphetamine, cannabis, and ketamine. The money was received in the form of hard-to-trace cryptocurrency, but it has been seized by the police now.

The forensics analysis on the seized computers helped investigators retrieve spreadsheets with client details, so if the recipients of the drugs used real names to receive their illegal substances over the Royal Mail service, they would soon be visited by the police. Usually, these cases concern mere warnings to these persons as no conclusive facts can be proven, but we don’t know how much data the police are holding on the buyers right now.

The anonymity offered in the dark web is oftentimes delusional, leading criminals and those fueling their operations with money to believe they are invincible and untraceable. This case proves that there’s always a connection to the physical world, and if a police department is willing to work meticulously to make that connection, crooks are busted.

Even if legal trouble isn’t enough to deter you from buying drugs on the dark web, think about your own health and the fact that sellers could be selling you laced stuff or any toxic and dangerous substance instead of what you think you’re getting.

In most cases, you will just pay for something you’ll never receive. In any way you see it, it’s just not worth it.