An Illinois man pled guilty this week to using the dark web and cryptocurrencies to pedal at least 4.3 million counterfeit Xanax pills throughout the United States between March 2017 and May 2018. The man was sentenced to 13 years in federal prison and ordered to disgorge more than $2.1 million in profits generated from the scheme. Last week in New York, prosecutors arraigned a woman accused of using dark markets to distribute heroin and methamphetamine to customers who paid her in bitcoin.
According to a press release published this week, the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), an intergovernmental law enforcement organization, worked with private-sector cybersecurity firms to identify a vulnerability in MikroTik routers that was facilitating massive crypto-jacking campaigns in Southeast Asia. The collaboration, led by INTERPOL, reportedly resulted in a 78 percent decrease in infected devices.
Kraken, one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, announced this week that data requests from law enforcement rose by almost 50 percent in 2019. The United States made more requests than any other country – almost 61 percent of all requests – with the United Kingdom taking second place, submitting 12 percent of the total. Kraken's CEO and co-founder, Jesse Powell, said that the cost associated with responding to the sharp rise in law enforcement requests in 2019 was more than $1 million.
For more information, please refer to the following links:
- Champaign Man Sentenced to 13 Years in Prison for Trafficking Millions of Counterfeit Xanax Pills on Darknet, Money Laundering
- Alleged Dark Web Narcotics Trafficker Indicted for Distributing Heroin and Methamphetamine in Exchange for Bitcoin
- INTERPOL Collaboration Reduces Cryptojacking by 78%
- INTERPOL-led action takes aim at cryptojacking in Southeast Asia
- Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken has said the cost of responding to law enforcement requests for user data is rising sharply year on year
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