International operation Dark HunTor results in 150 drug trafficking arrests

Oct. 26 (UPI) -- An international operation targeting drug trafficking on the dark web has led to the seizure of $31 million in cash, 500 pounds of drugs, and the arrest of more than 150 people, the Justice Department announced Tuesday.

Operation Dark HunTor involved the FBI, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Europol, and Australian police over a 10-month period across three continents.

Agencies found 45 firearms, 335 pounds of amphetamine, 56 pounds of methylenedioxymethamphetamine (known as MDMA or ecstasy), 22 pounds of cocaine, 59 pounds of opioids, and more than 200,000 pills of fentanyl, oxycodone, ecstasy, hydrocodone, and methamphetamine.

Arrests were made in the United States, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Netherlands, Britain, Italy and Switzerland.

The Justice Department said the operation was built on last year's Operation DisrupTor and the takedown of the DarkMarket -- the world's then-largest illegal marketplace on the darknet -- earlier this year.

"At the time, German authorities arrested the marketplace's alleged operator and seized the site's infrastructure, providing investigators across the world with a trove of evidence," the Justice Department said in a statement. "Europol's European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) and JCODE have since been compiling intelligence packages to identify key targets."