Deep Dot Web Administrators Charged With Money Laundering

The Pennsylvania State District Attorney’s Office has filed money laundering charges against alleged co-owners and administrators of the Deep Dot Web darknet information site, TechCrunch reports.

Israeli citizens Tal Prihar (37 years old) and Michael Fan (34 years old) were arrested the day before: the first in Paris, the second in Israel.

American prosecutors claim that the defendants placed referral links to the markets for illegal goods on a darknet and earned commissions (2-4%) with the purchases made by users. Thus, according to the investigation, from November 2014 to April 2019, they earned 8155 BTC. Profit while allegedly divided in half.

The agency found that 23% of all transactions carried out on the already non-existent marketplace AlphaBay , were made after the transition from the Deep Dot Web. At the same time, the site also brought about 198 thousand users to the Hansa market.

The Brazilian federal police, where Prihar recently resided, arrested another alleged member of a criminal conspiracy and seized $ 200,000, as well as an undisclosed cryptocurrency equivalent.

Em ações simultâneas, enquanto o investigado era preso em # Paris , na # França , buscas eram realizadas em sua casa, em Brasília. Na busca foram apreendidos dispositivos utilizados para a guardia de criptomoedas e R $ 200 mil em escécie (moeda estrangeira e reais). pic.twitter.com/hNMXM40SaQ

– Polícia Federal (@policiafederal) May 7, 2019

"This is the largest single breakthrough in the history of the fight against the darknet," – said the prosecutor Scott Brady.

Deep Dot Web Indictment by on Scribd

Recall the site Deep Dot Web in the traditional Internet has stopped working the day before. Instead, it was notified that the resource was closed by the FBI in accordance with the order of the prosecutor's office.

Earlier, in the course of an international special operation involving Europol, the German Federal Criminal Police and the German prosecution authorities, the dark wall marketplace Wall Street Market was confiscated and its alleged operators, three German citizens from the southern federal states, were arrested.

In parallel, the darknet marketplace Silkkitie (or Valhalla) was closed – its servers were withdrawn in Finland.

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