Silk Road 2.0 among dark net sites taken down

More than 400 websites on the ‘dark net’ believed to be involved in the sale of illegal items, including the infamous Silk Road 2.0, have been taken down following an international law enforcement operation.

Operation Onymous, coordinated by Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3), the FBI, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), US Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and Eurojust, undertook joint action against markets running on The Onion Router (TOR). TOR is a network designed to anonymise IP addresses by routing internet traffic through multiple servers.

The action was aimed at stopping the sale, distribution and promotion of illegal and harmful items, including weapons and drugs, and brought down several marketplaces, including Silk Road 2.0.

Last week’s operation resulted in 17 arrests of vendors and administrators running the marketplaces, and took down more than 410 hidden services. Bitcoins worth approximately $1 million and 180,000 euro in cash, drugs, gold and silver were also seized.

The National Crime Agency (NCA), which led the UK operation, arrested six people, including suspected administrators for Silk Road 2.0 and another drug market site, as well as significant distributors of illegal drugs through the dark web.

The six people arrested on suspicion of being concerned in the supply of controlled drugs were a 20-year-old man from Liverpool, a 19-year-old man from New Waltham, Lincolnshire, and a 30-year-old man from Cleethorpes. A 29-year-old man, 58-year-old man and 58-year-old woman all from Aberdovey, Wales, were also arrested. All six were interviewed and have been bailed pending further inquiries.

Computer equipment seized will now be forensically examined.

Roy McComb, deputy director of the NCA, said: “Over the months since the original Silk Road was taken down, we have been working with partners in the US and Europe to locate technical infrastructure key to the dark web and to investigate individuals suspected of significant involvement in illegal online market places.

“Those arrested by the NCA in this phase of the operation are suspected of setting up Silk Road 2.0, or of being significant vendors of illegal drugs.”

Troels Oerting, head of EC3, said law enforcement agencies have demonstrated that together they are able to efficiently remove vital criminal infrastructures supporting serious and organised crime.

“We are not ‘just’ removing these services from the open internet; this time we have also hit services on the dark net using TOR where, for a long time, criminals have considered themselves beyond reach. We can now show that they are neither invisible nor untouchable,” he said.