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, dark darknet market 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 markets onion address 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, the total number of cases involving cross-border drug trafficking nearly doubled to 562 from 279 between 2016 and 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 market, paying online and receiving the drugs in the mail, it added, darknet market magazine making prosecution complicated.
($1 = 0.8317 euros) (Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)
A government shutdown of dark web marketplaces AlphaBay and Hansa has merchants and consumers looking for a new home.
Authorities , the largest online marketplace for illegal goods, on July 4, and took down Hansa, the third largest, on Thursday. The sites, where people could buy drugs, guns and child pornography, had flourished since 2014, when a predecessor, Silk Road, was shut down.
Fueled by Tor browsers and cryptocurrencies that offer anonymity, AlphaBay, Hansa and other sites avoided much government detection, allowing in the wake of Silk Road’s demise. AlphaBay replaced as the biggest, growing to be 10 times larger.
When one dark darknet market falls, buyers and sellers just move on to the next one.
The migration of buyers and sellers comes as authorities around the world crack down on digital marketplaces that cater to growing numbers of shadowy sales. at the time it was taken offline. By comparison, Silk Road had just 14,000 when the Federal Bureau of Investigation closed it four years ago.
Many of the sites . A recent study by the University of Manchester and think tank Rand Europe found 811 arms-related listings on . The researchers found nearly 60% of the weapons came from the US and most of the sales were headed to Europe. Worryingly, one gun bought on a cryptomarket was used in a .
FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe acknowledged shutting down such markets was like playing whack-a-mole. His agency would likely have to in the future, he said.
“Critics will say as we shutter one site, another will emerge,” McCabe said at a press conference. “But that is the nature of criminal work. It never goes away, you have to constantly keep at it, and you have to use every tool in your toolbox.”
One such tool: using a captured marketplace as a trap.
After the fall of AlphaBay, Dutch police said they saw traffic heading to Hansa spike eight-fold. That was something the cops were anticipating.
Dutch police had full control of Hansa on June 20, but waited a month before shutting it down hoping to catch the new users in marketplace chaos.
“We could identify and disrupt the regular criminal activity that was happening on Hansa market but also sweep up all of those new users that were displaced from AlphaBay and looking for a new trading platform for their criminal activities,” Rob Wainwright, the Europol director, said at the press conference.
Dutch police now have the usernames, passwords and IP addresses of thousands of Hansa users, darknet market and are tracking them down.
An underground in flux
Dream Market seemed to be the next move for dark web vendors, but some question how reliable it is.
McAfee
The ploy has dark Markets 2024 web market users on edge. Many are concerned about whether the next available platform will be compromised as well. That has them questioning Dream Market, a marketplace that’s been in business since 2013 and benefitted from the shutdown of rivals.
“After the closure of the AlphaBay market, many vendors expressed that they were moving their operations to Hansa and Dream Market,” Liv Rowley, an analyst at Flashpoint, said. “The shuttering of Hansa now leaves Dream the only remaining major option.”
Rowley noticed chatter on forums and subreddits pointing to Dream Market as the next AlphaBay, but people are wary after the Dutch police ploy.
Reddit users on several threads have expressed concerns the website has been compromised in a similar fashion. A user who speculated Hansa had been compromised in a thread posted returned on Thursday to warn that .
“This is a warning you will want to heed,” the user, who goes by , posted. “They are waiting to gather as many refugees from AB & Hansa as they can and then drop the hammer.”
Other marketplaces, like Tochka and Valhalla, could also rise in the vacuum AlphaBay and Hansa have left. Some smaller dark web markets are even appealing to those lost in AlphaBay’s shake-up.
Security company was offering vendors from AlphaBay a discount if they moved to their platform.
“The entire illegal underground is in flux right now,” Flashpoint’s Rowley said.
It’ll be quiet on the dark web until people can find a reliable marketplace again, but eventually they will, said Emily Wilson, the director of analysis at Terbium Labs.
She called the busts a “sizable hiccup” but not “an irreversible blow.”
It’s unclear who’ll emerge from the fallout. But the FBI estimates that more than 40,000 merchants are looking for a place to sell. And there are more than 200,000 customers looking for places to buy stuff they can’t get on Amazon.
With AlphaBay, the Amazon of illegal goods, now shut down, the market is fragmenting. If you want malware, there’s a market for that on the dark web. The same for guns and for drugs. So business will go on, albeit less conveniently.
“For now, there are plenty of smaller and more specialized markets for vendors and buyers to continue trading,” Wilson said.
First published July 21, dark web darknet market 8 a.m. ET
Update, 5:04 p.m.: Adds background on scope of the markets, weapons sales.
: Online abuse is as old as the internet and it’s only getting worse. It exacts a very real toll.
: CNET chronicles tech’s role in providing new kinds of accessibility.
German police have taken down one of the world’s largest child porn sites with over 400,000 members and arrested four people accused of running it.
The site, known as BOYSTOWN and accessible only via the so-called Darkweb, had existed since July 2019 and was used for darknet market site the worldwide exchange of child porn.
Investigators spent months probing the site and those behind it, before arresting three main suspects along with a fourth man in raids last month.
German police have taken down a child porn site with over 400,00 members and arrested four men in connection with running it (file image)
Officers say the main suspects are a 40-year-old from Paderborn, a 49-year-old from Munich and a 58-year-old from northern Germany who had been living in Paraguay for many years – all of whom are accused of operating the site.
The fourth man, a 64-year-old from Hamburg, is accused of uploading more than 3,500 images and videos to the site since becoming a member in 2019 – making him one of the most prolific contributors.
Police said the site was designed to allow the international exchange of child abuse material by its members, mainly focusing on the abuse of young boys.
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‘Among the images and dark web market urls video recordings shared were also recordings of the most severe sexual abuse of young children,’ prosecutors said.
Members were also able to speak with one-another via chat areas of the website and darkmarket 2024 voice channels.
Officers say the three main suspects also provided members with instructions on anonymous surfing to minimize the risk of detection.
The site was detected by a task for best darknet market markets set up in Germany, but aided by investigators in the Netherlands, Sweden, Australia, the United States and Canada.
Following the raids and dark web market list arrests, the BOYSTOWN platform has been taken down, police added.
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 market 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, darknet market list ‘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, 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 ‘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.
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German police in January closed down the ‘DarkMarket’ online marketplace, used by its alleged operator, an Australian, to facilitate the sale of drugs, 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 came to light in the course of a major darknet markets onion address 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 dark web sites 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 market 2024 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.
LONDON (AP) – Ireland´s health system was still struggling to restore its computers and treat patients on Tuesday, four days after it shut down its entire IT system in response to a cyberattack.
Thousands of diagnostic appointments, cancer treatment clinics and surgeries have been canceled or delayed since a ransomware attack on Friday.
Authorities said hundreds of people have been deployed to tackle the attack, darknet markets url but it could be weeks before the health service can return to normal.
Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin said Tuesday that the attack was a “heinous” one that targeted patients and “the Irish public.” Health Service Executive chief clinical officer Colm Henry said the attack had had “a profound impact on our ability to deliver care,” and that the disruptions would undoubtedly “mount in the coming days and weeks.”
More than 2,000 patient-facing IT systems are affected, with around 80,000 devices linked to such systems throughout the health service, Henry told Irish broadcaster RTE.
Authorities are prioritizing systems involving direct patient care diagnostics, such as radiology, radiotherapy and maternity and dark web link newborn services.
“That´s what our experts are focusing on this week, with external help, to ensure those services are not reliant on manual exchange of information,” he said.
Ransomware attacks are typically carried out by criminal hackers who scramble data, paralyzing victims´ networks, and demand a large payment to decrypt it.
Irish officials say a ransom has been demanded but they will not pay it.
Conti, a Russian-speaking ransomware group, was demanding $20 million, according to the ransom negotiation page on its darknet market lists site viewed by The Associated Press. The gang threatened Monday to “start publishing and selling your private information very soon” if the money was not paid.
“The government will not be paying any money,” Justice Minister Heather Humphreys told RTE.
“We will not be blackmailed.”
The Irish Association for dark market url Emergency Medicine urged people not to turn up at hospitals’ emergency departments unless they have a genuinely urgent need to do so. It said that electronic ordering of blood tests, X-rays and scans is not available, and clinicians have no access to previous X-rays or scan results.
Many hospitals’ telephone systems are also not functioning because they are carried on computer networks, dark darknet markets 2024 2024 it added.
Patients have described their frustration about the attack, describing it as another torment thrown into the already difficult struggle to face illness during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Eimear Cregg, 38, a primary school teacher who is fighting breast cancer, had radiation therapy briefly postponed while doctors sought to restore her records so they could treat her properly.
“This is a very cruel thing to do to vulnerable people,´´ she told The Associated Press. “We´re fighting every day as it is and this was just another curve ball that wasn´t needed.´´
The Health Service Executive said in a statement late Monday that there were “serious concerns about the implications for patient care arising from the very limited access to diagnostics, lab services and historical patient records.”
The attack has also shut down the system used to pay health care workers.
The health service said it was working methodically to assess and restore its computer systems.
“Our priority is keeping our patients safe and maintaining essential care and support services,” it said.
Ransomware attacks are an increasing problem for private companies and public bodies around the world.
T he Thai affiliate of Paris-based insurance company AXA and a public health provider in New Zealand darknet marketbest darknet markets onion were both dealing with ransomware attacks on Tuesday.
In the U.S., the nation´s largest fuel pipeline was hit with a ransomware attack earlier this month.
The disruption of the Colonial Pipeline caused long lines at gas stations due to distribution problems and panic-buying, draining supplies at thousands of gas stations.
The US Justice Department announced the largest dark web market web bust it has ever helped carry out, seizing more than 1,100 pounds of drugs from 179 alleged online dealers around the world. The US worked with police in Europe to carry out the investigation, seizing more than $6.5 million in cash and virtual currencies.
Operation DisrupTor — named after the frequently used to access the dark web — was led by police in Germany, dark darknet market url along with US law enforcement agencies and Europol.
The majority of the arrests took place in the US with 121 cases, darknet markets followed by 42 cases in Germany, eight cases in the Netherlands, four cases in the United Kingdom, three cases in Austria and one case in Sweden. Police said investigations are still ongoing to identify people behind these dark web accounts.
The for darkmarkets hidden parts of the internet that you can’t easily discover through an online darknet market marketplaces have grown in popularity at an alarming rate and allow drug traffickers to openly advertise and take orders from anywhere in the world,” Rosen said. “The dark net invites criminals into our homes and provides unlimited access to illegal commerce.”
Operation DisrupTor used information from another major darknet market raided in April 2019, FBI Director Christopher Wray said. , one of the largest dark web marketplaces online.
Investigators said they’ve tracked down more than 18,000 listed sales to alleged customers in at least 35 states and in several countries around the world. Wray noted that there’s been a spike in opioid-related overdose deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic and that the FBI will continue investigating dark web drug darknet markets onion.
“Today’s announcement sends a strong message to criminals selling or buying illicit goods on the dark web: the hidden internet is no longer hidden, and your anonymous activity is not anonymous,” Edvardas Sileris, the head of Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre, said in a statement.
German prosecutors say they have busted one of the world’s biggest international darknet market platforms for child pornography, used by more than 400,000 registered members, including from the US, Australia and .
Frankfurt prosecutors said in a statement together with the Federal Criminal Police Office that in mid-April three German suspects, said to be the administrators of the ‘Boystown’ platform, were arrested along with a German user.
One of the three main suspects was arrested in Paraguay.
German prosecutors say they have busted one of the world’s biggest international darknet market platforms for child pornography
They also searched seven buildings in connection with the porn ring in mid-April in Germany.
The authorities said the platform was ‘one of the world’s biggest child pornography darknet market platforms’ and had been active at least since 2019.
Pedophiles used it to exchange and watch pornography of children and toddlers, dark web sites web markets most of them boys, darknet market from all over the world.
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Prosecutors wrote that they found ‘images of most severe sexual abuse of toddlers among the photos and video material.
A German police task force investigated the platform, its administrators and users for months in cooperation with Europol and law enforcement authorities from the Netherlands, Sweden, Australia, the United States and Canada, the statement said.
The three main suspects were a 40-year-old man from Paderborn, a 49-year-old man from Munich and a 58-year-old man from northern Germany who had been living in Paraguay for many years, the prosecutors’ statement said.
Prosecutors wrote that they found ‘images of most severe sexual abuse of toddlers’ among the photos and video material
They worked as administrators of the site and gave advice to members on how to evade law enforcement when using the platform for darkmarket link illegal child pornography.
A fourth suspect, darkmarket list a 64-year-old man from Hamburg, is accused of being one of the most active users of the platform having allegedly uploaded more than 3500 posts.
Germany has requested the extradition of the suspect who was arrested in Paraguay.
After the raids in mid-April, the online platform was shut down.
THE HAGUE, Jan 12 (Reuters) – An online marketplace called “DarkMarket” that sold illegal drugs has been taken down in an operation led by German law enforcement agencies, European police agency Europol said on Tuesday.
The darknet market had almost 500,000 users with 2,400 sellers, Europol said in a statement.
Transactions conducted on it in cryptocurrency were worth more than 140 million euros ($170 million).
“The vendors on the marketplace mainly traded all kinds of drugs and sold counterfeit money, stolen or counterfeit credit card details, anonymous SIM cards and malware,” Europol said.
Agencies from Australia, Denmark, darknet market websites Moldova, Ukraine, United Kingdom and the United States also took part in the operation, which Europol helped to coordinate.
darknet markets onion markets are e-commerce sites designed to lie beyond the reach of regular search engines.
They are popular with criminals, as buyers and darknet markets sellers are largely untraceable. Payments on the DarkMarket were made in bitcoin and monero.
The investigation was led by German prosecutors and an Australian citizen who is alleged to be the operator darknet market list of DarkMarket was arrested near the German-Danish border last weekend, Europol said.
More that 20 servers were seized in Moldova and Ukraine.
(Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
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, the total number of cases involving cross-border drug trafficking nearly doubled to 562 from 279 between 2016 and dark web 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 markets,” Eurojust said.
Likewise consumers of the drugs are also shifting to the darknet market, paying online and receiving the drugs in the mail, darknet market magazine it added, making prosecution complicated.
($1 = 0.8317 euros) (Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)
German police have taken down one of the world’s largest child porn sites with over 400,000 members and arrested four people accused of running it.
The site, known as BOYSTOWN and darkmarket link accessible only via the so-called Darkweb, had existed since July 2019 and was used for the worldwide exchange of child porn.
Investigators spent months probing the site and those behind it, before arresting three main suspects along with a fourth man in raids last month.
German police have taken down a child porn site with over 400,00 members and arrested four men in connection with running it (file image)
Officers say the main suspects are a 40-year-old from Paderborn, a 49-year-old from Munich and a 58-year-old from northern Germany who had been living in Paraguay for many years – all of whom are accused of operating the site.
The fourth man, Darknet Markets Links a 64-year-old from Hamburg, is accused of uploading more than 3,500 images and videos to the site since becoming a member in 2019 – making him one of the most prolific contributors.
Police said the site was designed to allow the international exchange of child abuse material by its members, mainly focusing on the abuse of young boys.
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Share this article
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‘Among the images and dark markets video recordings shared were also recordings of the most severe sexual abuse of young children,’ prosecutors said.
Members were also able to speak with one-another via chat areas of the website and voice channels.
Officers say the three main suspects also provided members with instructions on anonymous surfing to minimize the risk of detection.
The site was detected by a task for set up in Germany, but aided by investigators in the Netherlands, Sweden, darknet markets url Australia, darknet market markets url the United States and Canada.
Following the raids and arrests, the BOYSTOWN platform has been taken down, police added.