Drugs, Weapons, and Crypto Confiscated from Operation SpecTor

Liputan6.com, Jakarta A joint law enforcement consortium between the US and several other countries made 288 arrests and seized more than USD 53 million or the equivalent of IDR 781.4 billion (assuming an exchange rate of IDR 14,745 per US dollar) in cash and cryptocurrencies.

“These seizures were part of an unprecedented dark network drug enforcement action called Operation SpecTor,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a press conference, quoted by CNBC, Wednesday (3/5/2023).

The Department of Justice is also cracking down on cryptocurrency criminal transactions and online criminal marketplaces. Dozens of firearms and more than 850 kilograms of drugs were also seized in Operation SpecTor, according to dark web browsing protocols.

The operation was coordinated with Europol and resulted in the seizure of a dark web market called the Monopoly Market, according to a press release from the European agency.

The Justice Department says more than 100 federal operations and prosecutions have been conducted in the US. Garland said 153 domestic suspects had been arrested, including a California man who was suspected of selling nearly $2 million worth of fentanyl and methamphetamine on the dark web.

SpecTor is a continuation of the same efforts that disrupted the darknet marketplace Hydra in 2022 and the online identity theft site Genesis Market in 2023.

This operation involved many parties, including agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, US Postal Inspection Service, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Internal Revenue Service criminal investigation team.

Law enforcement from Austria, Brazil, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland and the UK are also involved.