A man has been charged in the US for running the "monopoly" drug market Monopoly on the darknet.
A 33-year-old Serbian man has been extradited from Austria to the United States to face charges for running a criminal darknet drug market called “Monopoly Market.”.
According to a statement from the US Department of Justice, suspect Milomir Desnica is accused of facilitating illegal drug transactions worth $18 million through his website.
The suspect was arrested in Austria in November 2022 and charged on July 26, 2022, with the Ministry of Justice announcing the charges last Friday.
Desnica now faces one count of conspiracy to distribute and possess methamphetamine and one count of conspiracy to launder money.
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Monopoly Market
Monopoly Market was a Dark Web marketplace launched in 2019 for the sale of illegal drugs, including opioids, psychedelics, stimulants, and prescription medications.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) reports that Desnica personally verified each registered seller to make sure they possessed the illegal substances they claimed to be selling, even asking them to provide photographic evidence of their inventory.
The FBI's Hi-Tech Opioid Task Force placed several orders with Monopoly Market, totaling 100 grams of methamphetamine, thus proving the validity of the products being sold on the website.
Desnica allegedly used at least two cryptocurrency from April 2020 to July 2022 to cover his tracks, launder the proceeds of his crime, and then sell cryptocurrency to Serbian P2P traders for fiat money.
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In December 2021, US investigators, with the help of cyber police forces in Germany and Finland, seized the hosting server of Monopoly Market.
“Through analysis of the seized server, law enforcement authorities identified records of drug sales facilitated by Monopoly, financial records documenting cryptocurrency to Monopoly, an online forum related to Monopoly, communications from the Monopoly operator to vendors, commission , and more,” the Justice Department statement explains.
In May 2023, an international law enforcement operation codenamed “SpecTor” arrested 288 Monopoly market vendors and seized €50.8 million ($55.9 million) in cash and cryptocurrency.
These arrests were made possible by analyzing data retrieved from Monopoly's server, revealing buyers and sellers who were active on the platform.
“Through extensive analysis of these records, Desnica was identified as the operator of Monopoly,” the DOJ.
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Now, Desnica faces the prospect of life in prison, the maximum sentence for distributing methamphetamine, while the money laundering charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years.
If convicted, Desnica will also have to surrender any assets linked to his criminal activity that were derived or acquired directly or indirectly from drug sales via the darknet.
Information source: bleepingcomputer.com
