Source: US FBI
To get the word out about the prevailing dangers, the JCODE team embarked on an effort this spring called Operation ProtecTor. This effort involved reaching out to individuals whose identities were discovered during search warrant and arrest operations of prolific vendors. The FBI sent leads to each of its field offices to work with partner agencies. Agents then drove to subjects’ homes, knocked on their doors, and let them know that law enforcement was aware of what they had been doing—and that the safest thing to do was to stop.
“No matter what somebody is telling you, you really don’t know what’s in it,” said Andrew Innocenti, a supervisory special agent who leads a JCODE squad in the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office. He said the drugs—or the precursor ingredients they’re made of—can change hands frequently as they travel from the darknet to the doorstep.
“When these pills are created and shipped around the country, they are being resold in some instances to people in high school, people at universities, people on social media,” he said. “And by that point, you’re diluting the message of what this actually is or is purporting to be. When the messaging gets changed over time, from drug trafficker to darknet vendor, to reseller, to the local high school kid who’s handing them out, who knows what you might be taking? And so that’s where the danger lies.”
Operation SpecTor is the fifth coordinated law enforcement action since the JCODE team was established in 2018. In remarks at a May 2 press conference in Washington, D.C., Attorney General Merrick Garland said the recent operation represents the most funds seized and the highest number of arrests in any coordinated international action led by the Justice Department against drug traffickers on the darknet.
“Our message to criminals on the dark web is this: You can try to hide in the furthest reaches of the internet, but the Justice Department will find you and hold you accountable for your crimes,” Garland said.