Authorities in Europe and the USA have arrested nearly 300 people, confiscated over $53 million, and seized a dark web marketplace as part of an international crackdown on drug trafficking that officials say was the largest operation of its kind.

European Union law enforcement agency Europol said on Tuesday that police worldwide had seized the online dark web marketplace Monopoly Market and arrested 288 ‘dark web vendors’ —including 10 in the Netherlands—who are allegedly involved in buying and selling drugs and other illicit goods on the platform. 

‘A number of these suspects were considered high-value targets,’ Europol said. 

Based in The Hague, Europol, which coordinated the 18-months long operation SpecTor across nine countries—including the Netherlands, Germany, Brazil, the US and UK—said it also recovered almost €51 million in cash and virtual currency, firearms and almost a tonne of drugs, including amphetamines, cocaine, MDMA and ecstasy pills.

The Dutch national police’s Cyber ​​Enabled Crime Team assisted in the operation, which was built on intelligence from evidence collected by Germany when it seized Monopoly Market’s ‘criminal infrastructure’ in December 2021. 

‘The intelligence that Europol shared with us, such as transaction data and virtual currency addresses, helped us to start new investigations and to enrich existing investigations. In this way, we have identified and apprehended a number of important Dutch sellers,’ said the Dutch team’s leader, Nan van de Coevering. 

‘The success of this operation again shows that international cooperation is essential in combating crime on the dark web.’ Operation SpecTor is the latest major take down of a darknet sales platforms, following the seizure of the highest-grossing dark web market ‘Hydra’ in April 2022 by German and US authorities. 

Europol officials said it doesn’t end here. ‘A number of investigations to identify additional individuals behind dark web accounts are still ongoing,’ Europol said. ‘As law enforcement authorities gained access to the vendors’ extensive buyer lists, thousands of customers across the globe are now at risk of prosecution as well.’

Police in eight European countries raided 150 addresses Wednesday in a vast, coordinated swoop targeting the notorious Italian 'Ndrangheta mafia, Belgian prosecutors said Wednesday.

"It is likely the biggest operation ever carried out in Europe against the Calabrese mafia," a spokesman for the federal prosecutors' office, Eric van Duyse, told a news conference.

He said 1,400 police officers in Italy were involved in the raids, revising down a figure of 3,000 prosecutors had given earlier in a statement.

He said also that more than 1,000 police officers in Germany took part.

Van Duyse said the European raids were triggered from a Belgian prosecutors' investigation opened five years ago "under the greatest secrecy".

The EU countries where the raids took place were Italy, Germany, France, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Slovenia and Romania, prosecutors said.

In Belgium, there were 25 police raids, and 13 people were arrested, including at least six who were wanted under European arrest warrants issued by Italy.