One of the kingpins of Silk Road, the online darknet drug market that operated with Bitcoin, and its alleged CEO, Roger Clark, a Canadian, pled guilty on Thursday in New York to conspiracy to distribute narcotics. He faces a term of incarceration of 20 years. Clark was extradited from Thailand in 2018, and was charged […]
Canadians among top users of seized darknet drug and weapons site The Italian Guardia di Finanza has arrested three individuals in Italy who are alleged to have operated the darknet site on TOR called the Berlusconi Market. The Berlusconi Market had over 100,000 illegal goods and services listed for sale such as illegal drugs, fake […]
A Canadian incarcerated near Montreal, Jason Berry, is facing extradition to the US over charges that, from jail, he trafficked fentanyl all over the world. According to the extradition request, the fentanyl sold by Berry caused the death of several Americans, as well as Canadians from overdoses. Berry is serving a 12 year sentence for […]
Super kingpin fentanyl dealer Aaron Shamo, who was an Eagle Scout and a Mormon, was found guilty at the end of August in Utah of continuing a criminal enterprise on the darknet and selling fake oxycodone pills laced with fentanyl. He is expected to be sentenced to life imprisonment under the “super kingpin” laws, similar to […]
A 22-year-old California man named Wyatt Pasek, was sentenced on August 26, 2019, to more than 17 years in prison in California for selling fake oxycodone pills laced with fentanyl and other synthetic opioids. Pasek sold drugs on the darknet on a marketplace under the name “OxyGod”, and was paid with Bitcoin. The proceeds of crime […]
FinCEN has released a very good plain language advisory for banks to become aware of, and assess the purchase and trafficking of fentanyl online for financial crime compliance. Fentanyl is imported in bulk from Mexican cartels and follows the same typology as typical TCOs and money laundering activities. It is also imported from China via […]
4th Anniversary of Silk Road founder’s Sentencing The end of May marked the 4th Anniversary of the sentencing of Ross Ulbricht, aka Dread Pirate Roberts, the founder of the now-defunct darknet marketplace website based in California, called Silk Road that operated on TOR, which brokered sales of illegal goods and services, including narcotics like heroin, […]
Canada now has its first official drug kingpin and its a company in Ontario. The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) yesterday designated a Canadian company as part of a significant foreign money laundering organization and drug trafficking organization. The Kingpin Act is used for the most serious of designations […]
Working with Europol, several law enforcement agencies shut down a Bitcoin mixing and anonymizing service called Bestmixer, which was one of the largest mixing services for digital currencies. Mixing and anonymizing services or anonymizing exchanges process digital currencies on behalf of customers in order to make it difficult to trace the digital currencies. The purpose […]
Last week, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC“) designated several people associated with the most powerful drug cartel in Mexico, the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación (meaning the new generation cartel of Jalisco), as drug kingpins. Added to the drug kingpin sanctions list is a Mexican Judge, Isidro Avelar Gutierrez, who is believed to […]