August 12, 2022

In our previous post, Policing the Darknet: Leading Cybercrime Agencies Go Dark, we took a high-level look at some of the most active law enforcement and intelligence agencies across the globe who police the darknet through targeted cyber operations.

Now, we’re taking a look at which key darknet-related cases these agencies have participated in throughout the years. It is important to note that many other organizations – such as local and regional task forces – have been key to supporting the investigative and tactical efforts in most of these operations. In fact, the coordination between these groups, which often occurs on a global scale, has proven to be key to successfully policing the darknet.

Timeline: Key Darknet Cyber Policing Operations

In recent years, there have been several elaborate ‘operations’ carried out by multi-agency international task forces, resulting in the ‘take-downs’ and seizures of prominent darknet marketplaces, forums, and criminal enterprises. Many of the operations shift the landscape, with hundreds of domains knocked offline. Others have sparked a community-wide state of panic where key threat actors go quiet or shift into even more shadowy corners of the dark web. This timeline reviews some of the key operations with the most significant impact.

This timeline is interactive. To navigate, use arrows to move right or left, pinch to zoom. Use the key at the bottom to organize by specific law enforcement groups from our chart (below). Click on any event to see more details.

As the darknet continues to be a haven for criminal activity, the importance of these intelligence and policing efforts remain critical. Many agencies conduct their investigative efforts by relying on tools such as DarkOwl Vision to search and monitor the darknet for evidence to build their cases, without having to access the darknet directly.

Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) on the Darknet

LEA Acronym or Common Name	Agency	Country
ATF	Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms	USA
ACIC	Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission	Australia
Bundeskriminalamt	Austrian Federal Investigation Bureau	Austria
NIS	Bulgarian National Investigation Service	Bulgaria
BKA	Bundeskriminalamt (Federal Criminal Police Office)	Germany
RCMP/Mounties	Royal Canadian Mounted Police	Canada
CIA	Central Intelligence Agency	USA
CIB	Criminal Investigation Bureau	International
Αστυνομία Κύπρου	Cyprus Police	Cyprus
DHS	Department of Homeland Security	USA
DOJ	Department of Justice	USA
EC3	European Cybercrime Centre	European Union
FBI	Federal Bureau of Investigation	USA
FSB	Federal Security Service (Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti ФСБ)	Russia
FinCEN	Financial Crimes Enforcement Network	USA
GDCOC	General Directorate Combating Organized Crime	Bulgaria
GCHQ	Government Communications Headquarters	UK
HSI	Homeland Security Investigations	USA
IRS:CI	Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation	USA
IDF	Israel Defense Force	Israel
JCODE	Joint Criminal Opioid and Darknet Enforcement (DOJ)	USA
GRU	Main Intelligence Directorate	Russia
NCA	National Crime Agency	UK
NCJITF	National Cyber Joint Investigative Task Force	USA
DNRED	National Directorate of Intelligence and Customs Investigations	France
NSA	National Security Agency	USA
NCIS	Naval Criminal Investigative Service	USA
KLPD	Netherland’s National Police	Netherlands
OFAC	Office of Foreign Assets Control	USA
PSNI	Police Service of Northern Ireland	Ireland
PF	Policia Federal	Mexico
NPB	Polisen Swedish Police	Sweden
PJ	Portuguese Judicial Police (Polícia Judiciária)	Portugal
SBU	Security Service of Ukraine (СБУ)	Ukraine
Europol	European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation	European Union
Interpol	International Criminal Police Organization	International
CBP	U.S. Customs and Border Protection	USA
ICE	U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement	USA
USDT	United States Department of the Treasury	USA
USPIS	United States Postal Inspection Service	USA
USSS	United States Secret Service	USA
DOD	United States Department of Defense	USA
DEA	United States Drug Enforcement Agency	USA

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Learn more about how DarkOwl’s data tools can support law enforcement and national intelligence efforts here.