The Australian Federal Police (AFP) raided properties located in Queensland after the arrest of an Australian man alleged to be the brains behind the DarkMarket dark web marketplace.
According to ABC, investigators from the Australian Federal Police(AFP) carried out search warrants on Thursday January 21, 2021 and Friday January 22, 2021, in Brisbane and the Gold Coast, the ABC reports.
The warrants were carried out in relation to a 34 year old Australian citizen who was arrested and is alleged to be the admin of DarkMarket.
Before the take-down DarkMarket was the biggest dark web market, DarkMarket vendors listed and sold; drugs, counterfeit money, credit card data, SIM cards and malware. This has not hindered the dark web and there are many more markets currently online.
Interpol are claiming that DarkMarket had more than 500,000 users and they carried out 320,000 transactions and they traded $220 million through DarkMarket.
The DarkMarket admin was arrested two weeks ago, the Australian was arrested by Interpol in Germany, they seized equipment and a seizure notice was placed on the DarkMarket website.
They carried out the raids based on information about the dark web marketplace that was made available to the Australian Federal Police.
During the raid on the properties, recovered the following items:
- A laptop
- 4 mobile phones
- 6 USB thumb drives
- 5 hard drives
- SIM cards
- Bank cards
Jayne Crossling the AFP Southern Commanding Acting Commander of Investigations has said that investigators are reviewing the evidence and may make arrests in Queensland Australia.
Australian Federal Police Statement
According to Jayne Crossling:
“There is no difference with the dark web, although the anonymising features of the dark web makes it harder for law enforcement to identify perpetrators, who commit abhorrent crimes,”
“If police knew there was criminal activity occurring in geographic location, action would be taken.”