Europol is claiming victory after announcing the shut down of two more dark web marketplaces and several arrests.
The law enforcement organization said German police shut Wall Street Market, which it claimed was the world’s second largest dark web market, while earlier this year Finnish customs put paid to Silkkitie, aka the Valhalla Marketplace.
It was also revealed that German police arrested three suspects and seized €550,000 in cash, along with six-digit sums of cryptocurrency, vehicles, computers, storage devices and other evidence. US authorities arrested two alleged major drug dealers operating on the site.
The Finnish authorities are also said to have made a major Bitcoin seizure when they shut down the main server hosting Silkkitie, which has been running since 2013. It was claimed that illegal traders were monitored as they moved to other dark web sites following the seizure, although it’s unclear whether they were arrested.
“These two investigations show the importance of law enforcement cooperation at an international level and demonstrate that illegal activity on the dark web is not as anonymous as criminals may think,” said Europol executive director, Catherine De Bolle.
It’s unclear whether the law enforcement activity was linked to the recent news that the site’s admins were attempting an exit scam.
At the time, one moderator was threatening to release the details of any user who sent their address in plain text as part of disputes or tickets, unless they paid a fee.
That same moderator, “Med3l1n,” reportedly posted their Wall Street Market logins and server IP address to Dread, a Reddit-like site for the dark web. That would have given law enforcers vital intelligence to shut down the operation and go after some of the most prolific traders on the site.
In a final irony, the world’s biggest market, Dream Market, which many users left after it said it was going to move to a “partner site,” appears to still be up and running.