A New York couple dubbed ‘ Bonnie and dark web markets Crypto Clyde’ arrested on charges of laundering $4.5 billion in stolen Bitcoin led an existence ‘pulled from the pages of a spy novel,’ prosecutors have said.
Ilya ” Lichtenstein, 34, and his wife Heather Morgan, 31, are being held in custody following their Tuesday arrest, and will appear before a court in Washington on Monday.
Federal law enforcement officials said they have recovered roughly $3.6 billon in cryptocurrency – the Justice Department’s largest ever financial seizure – linked to the hack of Bitfinex, a virtual currency exchange based in , whose systems were breached nearly six years ago.
![I Explored Dark Web Markets In 2023](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/OZ11Czzceuc/hq720.jpg)
Morgan had a remarkable online presence as an influencer and self-described ‘cringe’ rapper named Razzlekhan, who makes music ‘for the entrepreneurs and hackers, all the misfits and smart slackers’.
Prosecutors detailed on Thursday in court documents a remarkable lifestyle, complete with hollowed-out books, fake passports and burner phones.
Photos showed the books, and ziplock bags stuffed with cash.
Ilya Lichtenstein and his wife Heather Morgan were arrested on Tuesday and charged with money laundering
Bail for Ilya ‘Dutch’ Lichtenstein, 34, right, and his wife, darknet market markets 2024 Heather Rhiannon Morgan, 31, was set at $5million and $3million respectively after their arrest on Tuesday but they have not been released
A bag labeled ‘burner phones’ is shown in court documents. Prosecutors allege the couple had dozens of devices
Some of the phones found at Morgan and Lichenstein’s Wall Street apartment
A lawyer for the self-proclaimed ‘Crocodile of Wall Street’ rapper, Heather Morgan, darknet markets onion address 31, and her husband Ilya ‘ Dutch ‘ Lichtenstein, 34, right, has urged a judge to allow them to be freed on bail
In this courtroom sketch, attorney Sam Enzer, center, sits between Heather Morgan, left, and her husband, Ilya ‘Dutch’ Lichtenstein, in federal court, on Tuesday
As federal investigators raided their Wall Street home last month, Morgan asked to be allowed to retrieve her cat from under the bed.
But as she was crouching down and pretending to get the pet, agents saw that she was frantically trying to lock her phone, prompting them to wrestle her to the ground, prosecutors say.
The January 5 raid saw the officers find $40,000 in cash, dozens of electronic devices, and two hollowed-out books.
<p class="mol-darknet market lists vendors selling fake passports.
The delivery address was given as the 11 Mirrors Design Hotel in Kiev, which is the same hotel that Morgan posted photos of on her social media platforms, and from where Uber receipts showed she traveled.
Another document contained within Lichtenstein’s cloud storage account, prosecutors say, includes a Russian-language document that describes ‘how to anonymously receive a parcel in Ukraine.’
The document provides details of video camera positioning in Ukrainian post offices and how to avoid being seen.
Morgan was arrested on Tuesday in Manhattan, together with her husband, on federal charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to defraud the United States
Morgan, 31, who calls herself the ‘Crocodile of Wall Street’ (hence the croc pictured in her hand) also spends time creating low-budget rap videos and posing for dark market onion web darknet market list quirky photoshoots
In court on Friday, the couple’s lawyer, Samson Enzer, urged a judge to allow them to be freed on $3 million and $4.5 million bail respectively, saying the fact neither of them fled when given the chance upon first being alerted to the investigation, proves they would not run from the law if now freed on bail.
Prosecutors are urging caution: It is believed the couple still have vast sums of money at their disposal which is likely hidden from authorities.
Furthermore, Lichtenstein has dual citizenship with Russia giving the couple a possible safe haven from which it would be particularly difficult for U.S. authorities to secure an extradition order should the couple choose to flee.
If convicted, they face up to a maximum of 25 years in prison.
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LISBON, March 17 (Reuters) – The closure of nightclubs and bars during COVID-19 lockdowns in Europe is likely behind a significant drop in the use of party drug MDMA last year but consumption of other substances such as cocaine and cannabis kept rising, an EU study said on Thursday.
Conducted by the Lisbon-based European Union drugs agency (EMCDDA), a study of wastewater from nearly 45 million people in 75 European cities revealed that the use of most drugs, Dark Web Market List except MDMA, dark web market increased last year.
Around half of the cities where the study was conducted, ranging from Barcelona to Oslo, recorded increases in detected residues of cocaine, darknet market site amphetamine, cannabis and methamphetamine in wastewater.
“The results show both a rise and spread for most of the substances studied, reflecting a drugs problem that is both pervasive and complex,” EMCDDA director dark markets 2024 Alexis Goosdeel said in a statement.
A 2021 report by the United Nations showed a big increase in drug users worldwide due to the pandemic.
It said many turned to drugs due to poverty, unemployment and darknet market magazine inequality.
MDMA was the only drug where residues declined in the majority of the cities studied, possibly due to pandemic-driven closures of nightlife venues where this drug is often consumed, EMCDDA said.
The study also showed drugs were now reported more evenly across European cities compared to previous years when more diverse geographical patterns were observed.
Cocaine, for instance, remains most prominent in western and southern European cities but is increasingly found in eastern Europe.
Methamphetamine, historically concentrated in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, is now found in cities across the continent.
The study said the use of cannabis appeared to have been less affected by COVID-19 lockdowns than other drugs. In a report last year, EMCDDA said cannabis users were stocking up via the darknet market to avoid shortages during lockdowns.
(Reporting by Catarina Demony Editing by Mark Heinrich)
THE HAGUE, Oct 26 (Reuters) – At least 150 people have been arrested by European and U.S.
authorities after a joint crackdown on traders of drugs, weapons and other illicit goods on darknet market e-commerce sites, Dutch media reported Tuesday citing police agency Europol.
Cash and cryptocurrency worth 26.7 million euros ($31 million) and dark market url 234 kilograms of drugs were also seized, according to Dutch broadcaster KRO-NRCV.
“This operation proves that we can reach (criminals on the dark web link web) even if they think they are hiding somewhere, they cannot be sure we won’t be there at one moment to knock on their door”, Europol’s deputy executive director of operations, Jean-Philippe Lecouffe told the broadcaster.
Europol would not comment on the report, but referred to a press conference set for 10AM local time (1400 GMT) in Washington with the Department of Justice.
According to the Dutch media 65 U.S.
nationals were arrested, along with 47 Germans, 24 Brits and a handful of Dutch, French, Swiss and darknet market markets onion Bulgarian nationals.
The operation focused on sellers and buyers on the darknet market rather than the people running the sites as in earlier crackdowns.
Darknet markets are e-commerce sites designed to lie beyond the reach of regular search engines.
They are popular with criminals, as buyers and sellers are largely untraceable.
In January this year, Europol announced it had taken down an online marketplace called “DarkMarket” that sold illegal drugs in an operation led by German law enforcement agencies.
($1 = 0.8593 euros)
(Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg, editing by Bart Meijer and Christina Fincher)
THE HAGUE, April 19 (Reuters) – The number of cross-border drug trafficking cases referred to the European agency for prosecutorial cooperation nearly doubled in four years to 562 in 2020, partly driven by a huge increase in the production of synthetic drugs, the agency said.
In a report published on Monday Eurojust said drug trafficking in the European Union alone has an estimated value of 30 billion euros ($36 billion) annually.
The rapid rise of production of synthetic drugs such as methamphetamines and their sale via online darknet market places on the darknet market poses a big challenge to prosecutors across the European Union.
“By rapidly changing the composition of chemicals used for these drugs … or creating new substances, producers try to exploit legal gaps and avoid prosecution,” Eurojust said in a statement.
According to the report by the European prosecutor’s body, darknet market links the total number of cases involving cross-border drug trafficking nearly doubled to 562 from 279 between 2016 and darkmarket link 2020.
Synthetic and other new drugs made up almost one-third of them.
The Eurojust report said producers of new psychoactive drugs often don’t work in old-fashion hierarchical drug trafficking networks and sale and distribution are done online.
“This phenomenon has increased due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with organised crime groups adapting quickly to an online environment, using secured communication channels, crypto-phones, cryptocurrencies and darknet market markets,” Eurojust said.
Likewise consumers of the drugs are also shifting to the darknet magazine, paying online and dark web markets receiving the drugs in the mail, it added, making prosecution complicated.
($1 = 0.8317 euros) (Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)
ZURICH, April 8 (Reuters) – The former chief of logistics for a regional Swiss police force appeared in court on Thursday accused of falsely buying guns and bullets on behalf of his employer and selling them via the darknet market.
Prosecutors allege that the man, dark web darknet market list who has not been identified, ordered weaponry and ammunition when he worked for the cantonal police in Schywz, a mountainous canton near Zurich.
The darknet market is part of the internet often used by criminals for illegal activities.
Swiss police investigating the case recovered 80 guns and tens of thousands of bullets when they searched his home during the investigation. Court documents did not say to whom the weaponry was sold.
The 58-year-old, darkmarket url a civilian law enforcement employee, dark websites had ordered the material on behalf of police but instead used them for his own private benefit, court documents said.
In the case, whose proceedings at the Swiss Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona began on Thursday, the defendant is also accused of selling a “large number of weapons without authorisation to various persons” between 2012 and 2013.
He is accused of having offered the weapons through a darknet market account and having worked with an accomplice who has since been prosecuted in Germany.
He denies the charges.
Swiss broadcaster SRF said the accused handed over the weapons, which included automatic rifles and pistols, to his accomplice in a garbage bag at his home.
The accomplice, it said, then drove the material to a car park on a mountain road where the sales took place.
The Office of the Attorney General (OAG) launched the case against the man in 2018 after getting information from Germany. The OAG said the accused had made a profit of 180,000 Swiss francs ($195,000) from the transactions.
A two-day hearing began on Thursday, with an verdict expected on April 22.
($1 = 0.9251 Swiss francs) (Reporting by John Revill Editing by Mark Heinrich)
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Police around the world have arrested 150 suspects in one of the largest-ever dark web sting operations.
The suspects arrested included several high-profile targets, involved in buying or selling illegal goods online, Europol said today.
Operation Dark HunTOR also recovered millions of pounds in cash and , as well as drugs and guns.
The bust stems from a German-led police sting earlier this year taking down the ‘world’s largest’ darknet market marketplace.
Darknet markets are e-commerce sites designed to lie beyond the reach of regular search engines and are popular with criminals, as buyers and sellers are largely untraceable.
Police around the world have arrested 150 suspects in one of the largest-ever dark web sting operations.
The suspects arrested included several high-profile targets, involved in buying or selling illegal goods online, Europol said today (stock image)
Dark HunTOR, ‘was composed of a series of separate but complementary actions in Australia, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States,’ the Hague-based Europol said.
In the United States alone, darknet sites police arrested 65 people, while 47 were held in Germany, 24 in Britain, and four each in Italy and the Netherlands, among others.
A number of those arrested ‘were considered high-value targets’ by Europol.
Law agents also confiscated 26.7 million euros (£22.45million) in cash and virtual currencies, as well as 45 guns and 516lbs of drugs, including 25,000 ecstasy pills.
Italian police also shut down the ‘DeepSea’ and darknet markets ‘Berlusconi’ marketplaces, ‘which together boasted over 100,000 announcements of illegal products’, said Europol, which coordinated the operation together with its twin judicial agency Eurojust.
German police in January closed down the ‘DarkMarket’ online marketplace, dark markets used by its alleged operator, an Australian, to facilitate the sale of drugs, darknet market magazine stolen credit card data and malware.
Europol said the arrest of the alleged operator, caught near the German-Danish border at the time, and the seizure of the criminal infrastructure provided ‘investigators across the world with a trove of evidence’.
German prosecutors at the time said darkmarket 2024 came to light in the course of a major investigation against the web-hosting service Cyberbunker, located in a former NATO bunker in southwest Germany.
Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre EC3 has since been compiling intelligence packages to identify the key targets, the continent’s policing agency said.
The secret ‘darknet market‘ includes websites that can be assessed only with specific software or authorisations, ensuring anonymity for users.
Dark HunTOR, ‘was composed of a series of separate but complementary actions in Australia, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States,’ the Hague-based Europol (their HQ pictured) said
They have faced increased pressure from international law enforcement in recent months.
‘The point of operations such as this is to put criminals operating on the dark web on notice (that) the law enforcement community has the means and global partnerships to unmask them and hold them accountable for their illegal activities,’ Europol deputy director of operations Jean-Philippe Lecouffe said.
Rolf van Wegberg, cybercrime investigator at the TU Delft university said the operation signalled a break in the trend of recent police actions against suspected online criminals.
‘This kind of operations in the past looked at arresting the controllers of these marketplaces, we now see police services targeting the top sellers,’ he told investigative journalists at the Dutch KRO-NCRV public broadcaster.
A press conference about the operation has been set for 10am local time (2pm GMT) in Washington with the Department of Justice.
has announced a spike in far-right and warned that political extremists are ‘the biggest threat to our country.’
The interior ministry reported another annual increase in anti-Semitic crimes, up by 15.7 per cent in 2020, with 2,351 total incidents – 94.6% of which were committed by a far-right suspect.
Of the total, dark web sites markets dark market 2024 62 were acts of violence while the majority were antisemitic hate speech and other related crimes, frequently on social media.
Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said: ‘This development in Germany is not only troubling, but in view of our history, darknet market darknet markets onion deeply shameful.’
A protester with an Iron Cross draped over his back outside the Reichstag at a far-right demonstration against lockdown during the summer.
The symbol harks back to imperial Germany and was re-appropriated by the Nazis under Adolf Hitler
Far-right crime rose by 5.65 per cent in 2020, accounting for more than half of all politically-motivated criminality.
Seehofer said: ‘This shows again that right-wing extremism is the biggest threat for our country.’
It comes as Berlin police arrested a 53-year-old man on Tuesday on suspicion of sending dozens of threatening neo-Nazi letters to politicians, lawyers and journalists.
The suspect, whose name wasn’t released for privacy reasons, has previous convictions for ‘numerous crimes, including ones that were motivated by right-wing ideology,’ said prosecutors in Frankfurt, who are handling the case.
The letters were signed ‘NSU 2.0.’ A German group called the National Socialist Underground was responsible for a string of violent crimes between 1998 and 2011, including the racially motivated killings of nine men with immigrant backgrounds and a police officer.
The group’s name was derived from the full name of the Nazi, or dark market url National Socialist, party.
Police think the suspect sent almost 100 letters to dozens of people and organizations across Germany and Austria since 2018.
German news agency dpa reported that investigators think the suspect may have obtained personal data on the people he targeted from official records or darknet market forums.
German security agencies warned of the growing threat of violent far-right extremism.
In July 2019, a regional politician from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party was killed by a neo-Nazi; three months later, a gunman tried to force his way into a synagogue on Yom Kippur, killing two people.
Moshe Kantor, president of the European Jewish Congress, said the German numbers revealed by the interior ministry today highlighted a broader issue.
‘This is a wake-up call, not just for Germany, dark web markets but for the whole world,’ he said.
‘These figures should ring alarm bells, because we are seeing similar trends across the Western world.’
In 2020, Germany recorded a 72.4% increase in anti-immigrant crimes, up to 5,298 total cases over 3,073 in 2019, Seehofer said.
A bullet lies on the street in Hanau in February, 2020, after a right-wing terrorist shot nine people before turning the gun on himself
Forensic officers investigating in Hanau after the shooting which targeted immigrants in February, 2020
In the most deadly incident, nine people with immigrant backgrounds were shot dead in Hanau, near Frankfurt, in February by a gunman who had called for genocide.
Authorities have raised concerns about the role the Alternative for Germany party allegedly played in stoking a climate of resentment toward immigrants and the government.
The party, which placed third in Germany’s 2017 election, has moved steadily to the right in recent years, drawing increasing scrutiny from the country’s domestic intelligence agency.
On Tuesday, Alternative for Germany’s section in Berlin condemned a member who appeared to lament the absence of attacks on Merkel.
The news website Business Insider reported that AfD’s former chairman in Berlin, Guenter Brinker, forwarded a message stating that ‘either that piece of dirt is so well protected that nobody can get at her, or don’t the Germans have any balls?’
Brinker said later that he had mistakenly forwarded the message and regretted doing so, and that he rejected ‘all forms of hatred and violence.’
Many in the AfD have expressed support for, and participated in, the regular protests in Germany against lockdown measures, organized by the so-called Querdenker movement.
Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (pictured on Tuesday) said: ‘This (anti-Semitic) development in Germany is not only troubling, but in view of our history, deeply shameful.’
The demonstrations have become increasingly violent, and the country’s domestic intelligence service late last month said it had put some members of the loose-knit Querdenker movement under observation.
The protests have brought together a broad range of demonstrators, including people opposing vaccinations, others who deny the existence of the coronavirus, mask opponents, conspiracy theorists and others.
Seehofer said the protests have also attracted neo-Nazis and other right-wing extremists, and have regularly become violent.
‘At these gatherings organized by the so-called Querdenker movement, attacks are directed against police officers and the press,’ Seehofer said.
‘Of the 260 reported crimes against journalists, 112 were related to corona’ protests, he said.
‘I want to say here very clearly: These acts of violence are no longer about exercising a constitutional right (to demonstrate), but are acts of violence of a criminal nature that I condemn in the strongest possible terms.’