An Israeli national was sentenced to 97 months in prison for operating the DeepDotWeb (DDW) clearnet website.
Tal Prihar, 37, an Israeli citizen residing in Brazil, is the administrator of DDW since the website became functional in October 2013. He pleaded guilty to money laundering charges in March last year and agreed to forfeit the illegally collected profits.
DeepDotWeb (DDW) was a website that connected internet users with Darknet marketplaces, where they purchased illegal firearms, malware and hacking tools, stolen financial data, narcotic substances and other illicit materials.
Prihar, together with co-defendant Michael Phan, 34, of Israel, provided direct links to illegal marketplaces and in return for advertising these links, gained profits by receiving kickbacks from the operators of the marketplaces in the form of virtual currency amounting to 8,155 bitcoins (worth $8.4 million at the time of the transactions).
The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) stated that in order to conceal the nature and source of these illegal kickback payments, Prihar transferred the payments from his DDW bitcoin wallet to other bitcoin accounts and to bank accounts he controlled in the names of shell companies.
In May 2019, the Police seized the DeepDotWeb website and arrested its operators for their business in facilitating the access to darkweb marketplaces and vendors.
It was done as part of an international operation involving the FBI, Europol, and Federal law enforcement agencies from Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, and Brazil.
The DeepDotWeb operators were accused of making millions of dollars in affiliate commissions generated by referring traffic to darkweb marketplaces and vendors.
Image Credits : Adware Guru
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