EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

Authorities stop illicit commerce and DarkMarket

In a Europol-coordinated event, the world’s largest dark web marketplace, known as DarkMarket, has been dismantled. German authorities arrested a 34 year-old Australian man who is allegedly behind the dark website. Authorities have also seized 20 of the servers connected to the nefarious operations.

Prior to the takedown, DarkMarket hosted nearly 500,000 users. More than 320,000 transactions transpired across its network. Most of the transactions occurred via bitcoin or monero, which were considered largely untraceable forms of payment.

In addition to investigating the website’s operator, Europol has announced plans to investigate the buyers and sellers who frequented the site.

How much money changed hands on DarkMarket?

• 4,6500 bitcoin
• 12,800 monero
• A total of more than €140 million

Governments getting more aggressive in taking down dark web

On the part of federal agencies, dark website takedowns have grown increasingly aggressive and sophisticated. In 2020, a European investigation led to the take down of sites like Empire Market. As governments have ramped up their efforts, cyber criminals have wound down some of their operations. Fear of prosecution is high and some operators are cutting their losses, taking the money and running.

In the case of the Alphabay marketplace, taken down in 2017, federal agents continued to make arrests for several years after. Dark web marketplace technology can no longer easily outpace law enforcement.

The coordinated approach by European Cybercrime Centre (EC3)

In a comprehensive, coordinated, international program EC2 is:

• Sharing intelligence
• Developing new tools and techniques to improve dark web investigations
• Elevating its threat detection and target detection initiatives

The scale of EC3’s efforts reflect the organization’s commitment to tackle the use of the dark web as a façade for criminal activities.

For more on the removal of DarkMarket, visit The Verge.

The post World’s largest dark web marketplace, how authorities removed it from the internet appeared first on CyberTalk.

Earlier this month, German authorities arrested a 34-year-old Australian man who was accused of being the primary administrator behind DarkMarket: the largest illegal marketplace on the darknet.

The site, which boasted almost half a million users, more than 2400 sellers and some $170 million USD worth of transactions, allowed anyone with a Tor browser and some cryptocurrency to buy and sell drugs, forged money, stolen credit cards, anonymous SIM cards and malware. It was shut down shortly after the Australian man’s arrest.

The crackdown didn’t stop there, though. Last week, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) executed a series of search warrants across Brisbane and the Gold Coast, in Queensland, in connection to the shutdown of DarkMarket. Across Wednesday and Thursday, authorities seized a laptop, four mobile phones, six USB thumb drives and five hard drives, as well as SIM cards and bank cards.

Cybercrime Operations and Digital Forensic Teams are reviewing the seized items, and police say they aren’t ruling out further arrests as a result of their findings.

They believe Australian criminals most likely operated on DarkMarket and purchased illicit products via the site.

“Some of these items could have been used or acquired by Australians in Australia,” said Jayne Crossling, Acting Commander of Investigations with AFP Southern Command, in a statement. “If police knew there was criminal activity occurring in geographic location, action would be taken. 

“There is no difference with the dark web, although the anonymising features of the dark web makes it harder for law enforcement to identify perpetrators, who commit abhorrent crimes.”

Despite these apparent difficulties, January has been an eventful month in relation to the seizure and prosecution of international cybercriminals.

Three days after DarkMarket was taken offline, another, mid-seized illegal marketplace named Yellow Brick Market (YBM) disappeared from the dark web without warning—along with all of its users' cryptocurrency. Rumours suggest that a worker at DarkMarket also worked at YBM.

A day later, the owner of a Bulgaria-based cryptocurrency exchange, allegedly designed for the purpose of money laundering and used by fraudsters and online criminals, was sentenced to 121 months in prison.

Last Monday, a father and son in the Netherlands were each sentenced to three-and-a-half years behind bars for selling drugs on the dark web. And on Friday, a New Zealand man who tried to buy a three-year-old girl on the dark web, with the intention of using her as a sex slave, was jailed for five years.

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