The Finnish Helsinki District Court has imprisoned a Finnish citizen for conspiring with a number of people to import drugs and sell them on dark web markets.
According to Finnish Customs (Tulli), the 34 year old man controlled a million-dollar drug trafficking operation with a presence on the defunct Silkkitie, Dream, and Sipulimarket dark web markets.
The Finnish citizen started the selling drugs in 2014 on the Silkkitie dark web market. In 2018 he recruited his first accomplice, who is a 40 year old man from Helsinki, Finland. At the peak, the operation involved at 2 co-conspirators. After Silkkitie market was seized in 2019, the group started selling on Sipulimarket.
Investigation and arrest by German customs helped the Tulli investigators learn that the group acquired drugs from dealers in Netherlands. German customs arrested a drug courier in February 2020, the courier was working for the group. The arrest of the courier led to the seizure of more than 84,000 euros.
A courier would return from the Netherlands with the group’s supply, and the co-conspirators would hide the bulk drugs in warehouses that the group rented. The Co-conspirators used rented apartments and packaged the drugs for individual sale and shipment. Another group of co-conspirators would pick up the packages and mail them to the marketplace customers.
Tulli investigators raided the main suspects apartment in the summer of 2020. During the raid authorities recovered:
- 19,000 ecstasy pills;
- 280 grams of MDMA;
- 50 LSD tabs;
- 500 grams of marijuana;
- small quantities of methamphetamine;
- heroin;
- cocaine.
Tulli investigators also seized the following equipment:
- mailing supplies;
- encrypted computers;
- 100,000 euros;
- Bitcoin worth more than 12,000 euros.
Tulli said that the group earned more than one million euros through their dark web operation.
Most of the ring members in the case were charged with several aggravated drug offenses and more than five of them have been imprisoned. The defendant’s main accomplice, the 40-year-old man, was sentenced to six years and six months in prison.
The Helsinki District Court ring sentenced the leader to 13 years in prison.