FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – More than 100 people have been arrested in the U.S., Europe and Australia in connection with a worldwide drug trafficking investigation stemming from sales on the Darknet.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 150 people were arrested, including two people from South Florida.
The suspects from South Florida were identified by authorities as Luis Spencer, 31, and Olatunji Dawodu, 36, both of who are from Fort Lauderdale.
According to authorities, U.S. authorities teamed up with Europol to make the Operation Dark HunTor arrests.
The operation resulted in the seizure of weapons, drugs and more than $31 million in cash and virtual currencies.
Authorities said they took down DarkMarket, the world’s then-largest illegal marketplace on the Darknet, in January and international law enforcement agencies identified various Darknet drug vendors and buyers who engaged in tens of thousands of sales of illicit good and services across Australia, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.
A total of 65 arrests were made in the U.S.
“The FBI in conjunction with the USPIS, FDA, and DEA, had been investigating a criminal enterprise that operated two Darknet vendor accounts,” a news release from the DOJ read. “One of the accounts was operated out of the Miami area and the other out of the Providence, Rhode Island, area.”
Authorities said Spencer, Dawodu and Alex Ogando, 35, of Providence, Rhode Island, advertised and sold pressed fentanyl pills throughout the U.S.
Authorities also identified other co-conspirators and carried out search warrants for each person, which resulted in the seizure of $770,000, one weapon and about 3.5 kilograms of pressed fentanyl.
Spencer, Dawodu and Ogando are charged in the District of Columbia with conspiracy to distribute 400 grams or more of a mixture and substance containing a detectable amount of fentanyl.