Day: October 26, 2021

U.S. federal law enforcement agencies and Europol announced dozens of arrests to break up a global operation that sold illegal drugs using a shadowy realm of the internet.

At a Department of Justice news conference Tuesday in Washington, officials said they arrested 150 people for allegedly selling illicit drugs, including fake prescription opioids and cocaine, over the so-called darknet. Those charged are alleged to have carried out tens of thousands of illegal sales using a part of the internet that is accessible only by using specialized anonymity tools.

The 10-month dragnet called “Operation HunTor” — named after encrypted internet tools — resulted in the seizure of 234 kilograms of drugs, including amphetamines, cocaine and opioids worth more than $31 million. Officials said many of the confiscated drugs were fake prescription pills laced with the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl. The counterfeit tablets are linked to a wave of drug overdoses.

“This international law enforcement operation spanned across three continents and sends one clear message to those hiding on the darknet peddling illegal drugs: there is no dark internet,” said U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco.

Investigators rounded up and arrested 65 people in the United States. Other arrests occurred in Australia, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. In addition to counterfeit medicine, authorities also confiscated more than 200,000 ecstasy, fentanyl, oxycodone, hydrocodone, and methamphetamine pills.

“We face new and increasingly dangerous threats as drug traffickers expand into the digital world and use the darknet to sell dangerous drugs like fentanyl and methamphetamine,” said Anne Milgram, administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). “We cannot stress enough the danger of these substances.”

The international police agency Europol worked alongside the U.S. Justice Department’s Joint Criminal Opioid and Darknet Enforcement team.

“No one is beyond the reach of the law, even on the dark web,” said Jean-Philippe Lecouffe, Europol’s deputy executive director.

The dark web is preferred by criminal networks who want to keep their internet activities private and anonymous. In this case, it served as a platform for illegal cyber sales of counterfeit medication and other drugs that were delivered by private shipping companies.

Investigators said the fake drugs are primarily made in laboratories in Mexico using chemicals imported from China. Prosecutors also targeted drug dealers who operated home labs to manufacture fake prescription pain pills.

“Those purchasing drugs through the darknet often don’t know what they’re getting,” Associate Deputy FBI Director Paul Abbate said. The joint investigation followed enforcement efforts in January in which authorities shut down “DarkMarket,” the world’s largest illegal international marketplace on the dark web.

Last month, the DEA warned Americans that international and domestic drug dealers were flooding the country with fake pills, driving the U.S. overdose crisis. The agency confiscated more the 9.5 million potentially lethal pills in the last year.

More than 93,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2020, the highest number on record, according the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. U.S. health officials attribute the rise to the use of fentanyl, which can be 100 times more potent than morphine.

U.S. officials said investigations are continuing and more arrests are expected.

Source: Voice of America

Wildlife officials and environmental groups in Florida are raising an alarm over the unprecedented die-off this year of manatees, the large, slow-moving sea animals that are the southeastern U.S. state’s official marine mammal.

The latest figures from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission show that as of October 15, 974 manatees have been found dead, more than twice the number that died all of last year and more than any other year on record.

The number represents more than 10% of the total population of manatees in the state.

Officials fear the onset of winter and colder weather could bring another wave of deaths.

Environmental officials say there is no real mystery for the die-off. They say over the past 10 years, seagrass, the primary food for the animals, has been steadily declining.

When wildlife officials conducted postmortem examinations on the bodies found in the first half of the year, the vast majority were found to have starved to death.

Environmental experts say the seagrass is being killed off by declining water quality traced to man-made sources such as fertilizer runoff, wastewater discharges and other pollutants. State estimates show that since 2009, about 58% of the seagrass has been lost in the Indian River Lagoon, a prime habitat for manatees, The Associated Press reported.

The Florida Legislature this year approved $8 million in funding for a manatee habitat restoration program run by state and federal environmental officials.

The Associated Press reports the Fish and Wildlife Commission is calling for state lawmakers to approve another $7 million for seagrass restoration projects, manatee rehabilitation centers and other projects.

The manatees in Florida are West Indian animals known for their round bodies, large front flippers and paddle-shaped, flat tails. The average adult is just more than 3 meters long, weighs as much as 550 kilograms and may live as long as 65 years. They are closely related to elephants.

Source: Voice of America