An Israeli national managing DeepDotWeb (DDW), a site that linked web visitors with Darknet markets where they could buy unlawful weapons, spyware, and hacking equipment, seized financial data, heroin, fentanyl, and other illegal items, was convicted yesterday of 97 months in prison. deepdotweb coadmin sentenced prison.
Tal Prihar, a 37-year-old Israeli national living in Brazil, admitted guilty to conspiring to launder money in March 2021, according to court records. DDW was owned and run by Prihar and Israeli co-defendant Michael Phan, 34, as of October 2013. DDW offered visitors direct links to illegal Darknet marketplaces, which are not reachable through conventional search engines, in addition to general information about the Darknet.
Prihar and Phan obtained incentive compensation from the markets in the form of digital money, including about 8,155 bitcoins (valued at about $8.4 million at the time of the transactions), in exchange for supplying these links. Prihar shifted the funds from his DDW bitcoin wallet to other bitcoin addresses and to bank deposits he owned in the names of front firms to hide the type and origin of these unlawful kickback payments. Phan is still at large and is presently the subject of Israeli extradition proceedings.
The department expresses gratitude to both French and American law enforcement officials. The Postal Inspection Service, IRS-Criminal Investigation, Israeli National Police, Dutch National Police, Europol Darkweb Team, Federal Criminal Police Office of Germany, and National Crime Agency in the United Kingdom are among the organizations that use this facility. The Office of International Affairs of the Justice Department offered a lot of support.
The Joint Criminal Opioid and Darknet Enforcement (J-CODE) Team was involved in bringing this case. J-CODE is a U.S. government project designed to combat drug trafficking, specifically the distribution of fentanyl and other opioids over the Darknet. It was created within the FBI’s Hi-Tech Organized Crime Unit. Agents, analyzers, and experts with knowledge of cartels, drugs, healthcare fraud, and other topics make up the J-CODE team.
The Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) investigation led to this prosecution as well.