The FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) on Thursday announced that 270 people were arrested and that hundreds of pounds of fentanyl were seized as part of an operation targeting drug traffickers on darknet websites.
The arrests were made in Austria, Brazil, France, Germany, the Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States under “Operation RapTor,” according to the FBI. The name of the operation refers to the Tor software and browser that allows for anonymous web browsing and to access darkweb, or darknet, websites that are normally not accessible through standard browsers or search engines.
In a statement, the DOJ said that “more than $200 million in currency and digital assets, over two metric tons of drugs, 144 kilograms [317 lbs] of fentanyl or fentanyl-laced narcotics, and over 180 firearms” were also seized in the operation.
FBI officials noted that one kilogram, or 2.2 pounds, of fentanyl has the potential to kill up to 500,000 people. That drug has led to hundreds of thousands of overdose deaths in the United States over the past decade or so, and it’s currently the leading cause of overdose deaths in the country, federal health officials say.
“By cowardly hiding online, these traffickers have wreaked havoc across our country and directly fueled the fentanyl crisis and gun violence impacting our American communities and neighborhoods,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement on Thursday. “But the ease and accessibility of their crimes ends today.”
An operation targeting an apartment in Los Angeles that was being used as a hub to distribute cocaine and methamphetamine on the dark web also led to the seizure of “large amounts of cash and suspected drugs,” the FBI said.
Hellbound and Down 