LAW ENFORCEMENT

3Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

Hundreds arrested for ‘dark web’ child porn by international task force

Yesterday, authorities in the United Kingdom and the United States announced that 337 suspected users in 38 countries were arrested following an investigation of a dark web child pornography site. The website was based in South Korea and accepted cryptocurrency as payment. Law enforcement agencies from Germany, South Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States were part of the international task force. The current phase of investigation and arrests began in 2018. The website after it was shuttered by authorities Image: NCA. via Twitter At the center of the case was a website known as "Welcome To Video" and its alleged operator Jong Woo Son from South Korea. According to authorities, the site hosted a quarter million video clips containing sexual abuse of children, including t...

2May

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

LAW ENFORCEMENT

Texas Man Sentenced to 58 Months for Darknet Fraud Scheme

A man from Texas was sentenced to 58 months in prison for stealing over 1,200 credit and debit card numbers. Odis Edwards, 40, used financial data obtained from the dark web to book hotel rooms around the Dallas area. Hotel staff first reached out to police after observing suspicious behavior from Edwards and his co-conspirators. More than $250,000 was spent for booking the rooms, some of which were sub-rented to pimps and drug dealers at a fraction of the original cost. The Police Raid Hotel staff noticed notified police that several large service bills were piling up, all charged to Edwards’ account. Police then raided the booked rooms, where they found notebooks with what appeared to be numbers from credit cards, altered credit cards and URLs of credit card generators. The rai...

2May

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

LAW ENFORCEMENT

Wall Street Market Exit Scam: What We Know So Far

Speculation surfaced earlier last week that Wall Street Market has pulled off an exit scam, capitalizing on the influx of new users after its competitor, Dream, announced its closure last month. While WSM’s homepage displays a maintenance notice, users suspect the admins have swiped $30 million in escrow-held funds. This story is developing. Here’s what we know so far: The unpredictability in darknet markets continues to manifest itself—the latest incident is an alleged exit scam by Wall Street Market, running into $30 million or more. The event comes a month after the announcement that one of the dark web’s longest-serving marketplaces, Dream Market, will shut down on April 30, a move that also came as a surprise to the darknet community. From experience, darknet markets are w...

21Mar

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

LAW ENFORCEMENT

Leader to an Elmira Dark Web Opioid Trafficking Ring Sentenced to Over 17 Years in Federal Prison

According to an announcement by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Western District of New York, a 31-year-old man from Elmira who, with a co-conspirator, headed an opioid dark web trafficking ring was sentenced to 17 years and six months in federal prison. The sentence was issued after the man was found guilty of conspiracy to possess with the intent to distribute and distribution of more than 100 grams of a fentanyl analogue. Authorities believe that at least two people died after consuming opioids sold by the man’s ring, while another overdosed on several occasions but survived after being treated. From 2015 to May 2017, Maximillian Sams, 31, and his partner, Robert Ian Thatcher, led an opioid manufacturing and distribution ring from Elmira, New York. Sams and Thatcher used the dark ...

21Feb

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

LAW ENFORCEMENT

Romanian Police Officer Accused of Darknet Drug Trafficking

A 37-year-old Romanian police officer was arrested after he attempted to pick up a drug package he had ordered over the dark web from Belgium. The police officer is accused of importing ‘high-risk’ drugs into Romania from the Netherlands, Germany, and Belgium. The officer was arrested together with his girlfriend, with whom he allegedly engaged in cultivating cannabis which they sold on a wholesale basis. According to a statement by the Department for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT), the 37-year-old Deputy Agent who was the head of Răducăneni police station, Christian Danu, and his girlfriend, Diana Lacramioara Muntean, allegedly engaged in the consumption and trafficking of drugs acquired through the darknet. Danu, in particular, is accused of trafficki...

19Feb

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

LAW ENFORCEMENT

Man from Miami Beach Apprehended for Unlawful Exchange of Bitcoin for Cash

A web designer from Miami Beach is facing prosecution in the Third District Court for selling bitcoin to Ricardo Arias, an undercover detective. Michell Espinoza, aged 35, was charged with taking part in illegal transmitting and laundering of bitcoin worth $1,500. Detectives began to pursue Espinoza in 2014 when he was advertising himself as a bitcoin seller through the crypto-exchange site, LocalBitcoins.com. He would ask clients to meet him at a restaurant, bank, mall, or internet café where he would sell the bitcoins and charge a fee for his services. Just before his arrest, Espinoza went to a coffee shop on Lincoln Road to meet a client, unaware that the client was Detective Arias. He sold bitcoins worth $416.12 at a price of $500, earning him $83.18. A second meeting bet...

7Feb

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

LAW ENFORCEMENT

Paris court jails two police in high-profile rape case

After a jury trial in Paris, two French police officers were found guilty on Thursday of raping a Canadian tourist in 2014. Both on Thursday received seven-year prison terms. The case has attracted widespread attention. Emily Spanton, 39, who has waived her right to anonymity, met officers Antoine Quirin and Nicolas Redouane, 40 and 49, at an Irish pub. They worked for the Brigade de Recherche et d’Intervention, an elite anti-gang unit tasked with investigating serious offending, and offered Spanton a late night tour of the famed police headquarters at 36 Quai des Orfèvres. CCTV captured their arrival at the building, entering at 0:40 after Spanton smoked a cigarette; she departed in tears, without her tights, and carrying her shoes at 2:00. In between, she testified, she was g...

Anchorage Man to Face Charges in Pennsylvania in Lafayette College over Dark Web Bomb Threat

11Jan

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

LAW ENFORCEMENT

Anchorage Man to Face Charges in Pennsylvania in Lafayette College over Dark Web Bomb Threat

An Anchorage man was arrested by police last week and will be charged in Pennsylvania for a dark web bomb threat at Lafayette College, which has caused panic in Easton. The FBI launched an investigation after a wave of panic, caused by a bomb threat posted on Twitter, spread on social media. Law enforcement conducted a warranted search at the Lafayette College campus in Easton on Saturday night, 5 May 2018, and a young man, who claimed to be a student at the college, was arrested. He had, on several occasions, openly declared his allegiance to the ISIS terror group and was planning to bomb the campus, according to his social media posts. Gavin Lee Casdorph was arrested in a house to house raid on Easton campus and has since admitted to making bomb threats after the FBI confro...

8Jan

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

LAW ENFORCEMENT

Four Men Arrested for Using Dark Web “Child Porn” Forum

Authorities in Switzerland have arrested four suspected members of the dark web child abuse forum, “Elysium.” Europol has been coordinating the investigation between German authorities and Fedpol. In 2017, the German Federal Criminal Police Office raided the home owned by the operator of Germany’s largest child pornography forum on the dark web. They arrested the forum owner and seized the encrypted computers that had been hosting the server. Since the arrest, the German Federal Criminal Police Office and other branches of law enforcement in Germany and Austria arrested members of Elysium. They used logs from the seized server and other pieces of revealing information to track down physical child abusers first. Even though the forum was for German speakers, law enforcement aro...

Prosecutors Seek 10-Year Jail Term Over Money Laundering in Bitcoins and Link to Silk Road

27Dec

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

LAW ENFORCEMENT

Prosecutors Seek 10-Year Jail Term Over Money Laundering in Bitcoins and Link to Silk Road

A Former CEO has run into deep trouble with the Japanese legal system. Tokyo based prosecutors are seeking to have the former CEO sentenced to over ten years in prison for the embezzlement of company’s funds, money laundering in bitcoins, and his link to the infamous dark web marketplace called the Silk Road. Mark Karpeles, the former CEO at Mt. Gox, is facing charges for abuse of power, embezzlement of the company’s funds and money laundering in virtual currencies during his term in office. According to the report by a local Tokyo-based news outlet, Mark Karpeless embezzled over $3 million (340 million yen) in digital currencies – money that belonged to the company. He is said to have transferred the loot into his several e-wallet personal accounts to minimize the chance o...