A Wisconsin man pleaded guilty in Federal court to possession with intent to distribute a variety of drugs through Alphabay, Hansa, Dream Market, and several other darkweb marketplaces. He admitted selling more than $1.5 million worth of drugs over the course of his career.
A defendant in a methamphetamine distribution case in South Dakota admitted purchasing 500 or more grams of methamphetamine on the darkweb and redistributing the drug locally for further resale. He also admitted using his Coinbase account to fund the drug trafficking operation and to help conceal the proceeds of the operation.
A Santa Barbara Film student who had attempted to hire a hitman on the darkweb to kill his stepmother was sentenced to three years in state prison, according to an announcement from the District Attorney.
Homeland Security Investigations and the United States Postal Inspection Service are investigating a North Carolina woman for drug crimes likely linked to the darkweb. Investigators seized a package of pills headed addressed to the suspect. After searching the suspect’s house, they found hundreds of USPS packages and thousands of pills.
The prosecution has asked the court to sentence a businessman from Singapore to five years in prison for paying a hitman on the darkweb to murder his former affair partner’s new boyfriend. The businessman had asked the hitman to make the death look like a car accident.
The Portuguese Judicial Police (Polícia Judiciária), with support from Europol, dismantled Europe’s second-largest counterfeit currency network on the darkweb, according to an announcement from Europol. The operation led to seizures and arrests throughout Europe, notably in Portugal, Spain, France, and Germany.
Belarusian law enforcement seized and shutdown XakFor, one of the largest hacking forums on the internet, according to a statement from the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The forum had almost 30,000 active users at the time of the seizure and several thousand active users every day.
A former PayPal employee living in California was sentenced to 71 months in prison for trying to purchase a chemical weapon on the darkweb in a failed scheme to kill his wife. Sandford Faison, on darkweb forums, sought advice on using a specific chemical to murder his wife and purchased the chemical from an undercover federal agent.