Law enforcement agencies from nine countries, coordinated by Europol, conducted an international law enforcement operation known as “SpecTor,” resulting in the seizure of the illegal dark web marketplace “Monopoly Market” and the arrest of 288 individuals suspected of buying or selling drugs on the dark web.
The arrested individuals were engaged in tens of thousands of sales of illicit goods. The law enforcement seized over EUR 50.8 million (USD 53.4 million) in cash and virtual currencies, 850 kg of drugs, and 117 firearms. This is the first time that Europol confirmed the seizure of the Monopoly Market that took place in December 2021.
Europol has been compiling intelligence packages based on troves of evidence provided by German authorities since they successfully seized the marketplace’s criminal infrastructure in December 2021. These target packages, created by cross-matching and analyzing the collected data and evidence, served as the basis for hundreds of national investigations.
The vendors arrested as a result of the police action against Monopoly Market were also active on other illicit marketplaces, further impeding the trade of drugs and illicit goods on the dark web.
Most of the arrests took place in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany, and other arrested individuals were from the Netherlands, Austria, France, Switzerland, Poland, and Brazil. Europol pointed out that the number of arrested individuals in the SpecTor operation is greater than the number of arrests for the 2020 DisrupTor and 2021 Dark HunTor law enforcement operations.
In a separate incident in April 2022, Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office announced that they had shut down Hydra, one of the world’s largest dark web marketplaces, resulting from an international investigation conducted by the Central Office for Combating Cybercrime in partnership with U.S. law enforcement authorities.
The German police seized approximately EUR 23 million worth of Bitcoin, and around 17 million customers and over 19,000 seller accounts were registered on the Hydra Market. The seizure of the Hydra Market is a significant blow to the illegal trade of drugs and illicit goods on the dark web.
