Police Shut Down Dark Web Drug Site Utopia And Arrest Five

Five men have been arrested by Dutch and German police in a crackdown on two dark web sites selling drugs and other illicit services, Utopia and Black Market Reloaded.

The latter site has been offline since last year, but Utopia, which had only been running for just over a week, was shut down this week as part of the investigation. Servers running the site were seized in Germany on Tuesday.

One of the men arrested as part of the Utopia investigation had already been apprehended whilst on the way into Germany with 1.5 kilograms of hashish, 40 grams of cocaine and 1.5 pounds of ecstasy.

Dark web assault

The arrests came after an undercover operation saw agents buy significant quantities of illegal substances, including several thousand ecstasy pills and dozens of grams of cocaine.

During their chats with the online dealers, they were even asked to carry out a hit on a target. Hitmen are not uncommon on the dark web.

When the Dutch police searched the homes of the suspects, who ranged in age from 21 to 46, they uncovered virtual goods, including 900 bitcoins, worth around £325,000.

Dark web sites are being closely followed by law enforcement across the globe. Silk Road, the most infamous drug bazaar, was taken offline and its alleged creator arrested. A host of alleged dealers were also apprehended, including a handful in the UK.

A second version of Silk Road is now online, whilst many more sites offering illicit services can still be found on the Tor network.

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