The joint operation between 16 European countries and the US saw 17 arrests, including Blake Benthall who is said to be behind Silk Road 2.0.
The sites operated on the Tor network – a part of the internet unreachable via traditional search engines.
The joint operation between 16 European countries and the US saw 17 arrests, including Blake Benthall who is said to be behind Silk Road 2.0.
Experts believe the shutdown represents a breakthrough for fighting cybercrime.
Six Britons were also arrested, including a 20-year-old man from Liverpool, a 19-year-old man from New Waltham, a 30 year-old-man from Cleethorpes and a man and woman, both aged 58, from Aberdovey, Wales.
All were interviewed and bailed according to the National Crime Agency.
Tor, as well as hosting legitimate sites, is home to thousands of illegal marketplaces, trading in drugs, child abuse images as well as sites for extremist groups.
It was the operation last year to take down the drugs marketplace Silk Road which was the first major success in the battle against criminal use of the dark net.
Now this much bigger operation involving global cooperation amongst law enforcement agencies sees that battle taken to a new level, with Silk Road 2.0 amongst 400 sites closed.
It’s important to remember that the dark net isn’t all about illegal activity. Indeed its best known tool the anonymising browser Tor was created by a US intelligence agency to help its operations and to assist people living under repressive regimes.
Last year, many predicted that shutting one online drugs bazaar – and arresting its alleged owner Ross William Ulbricht – would not make a lot of difference, with plenty more rushing to fill the gap.
Still, the number of arrests may be telling – 400 sites closed, but just 17 arrests. That would suggest there is a lot of work still to be done.
‘Serious organised crime’
The operation also saw the seizure of Bitcoins worth approximately $1m (£632,000).
“Today we have demonstrated that, together, we are able to efficiently remove vital criminal infrastructures that are supporting serious organised crime,” said Troels Oerting, head of Europol’s European cybercrime centre.
“And we are not ‘just’ removing these services from the open internet; this time we have also hit services on the dark net using Tor where, for a long time, criminals have considered themselves beyond reach,” he added.
The BBC understands that the raid represented both a technological breakthrough – with police using new techniques to track down the physical location of dark net servers – as well as seeing an unprecedented level of international co-operation among law enforcement agencies.
Source: BBC