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The United States government forfeited approximately $34 million worth of cryptocurrency linked to illegal dark web activity.

It is one of the largest cryptocurrency forfeiture actions by the federal government, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida.

Federal prosecutors filed a civil forfeiture complaint against a South Florida resident selling illegal items and hacked online account information on some of the largest dark web market places.

According to the complaint, this South Florida resident sold hacked stolen online account information for popular services including HBO, Netflix, Uber and many others. He used a special network of computers distributed around the world known as The Onion Router (TOR) Network to access the dark web. The TOR Network is designed to hide the Internet Protocol (IP) addresses of computers, thus a user's internet traffic is anonymous.

Additionally, the complaint alleged that this South Florida resident committed money laundering. He allegedly used so-called "tumblers" and illegal dark web money transmitter services to launder one cryptocurrency to another. Such scheme is called "chain hopping."

A tumbler is a dark web mixing service that facilitates multiple cryptocurrency transactions for users. The service distributes a cryptocurrency to a designated crypto wallet at random times to conceal the original source of funds. Law enforcement agents seized different crypto wallets linked with the illegal dark web activity.

The cryptocurrency forfeiture action is the result of Operation TORnado, a joint investigation between federal, state and local law enforcement agencies under the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) Program.

The OCDETF Program's top priority is to identify, disrupt, and dismatle transnational criminal organizations, drug traffickers, money launderers, and other criminal enterprises that threatens U.S. citizens.

In August 2020, U.S. authorities disrupted the online fundraising campaigns and seized the cryptocurrency accounts of terrorist organizations Al-Qaeda, Al-Qassam Brigades, and Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

In October 2020, the federal government disrupted and seized the websites of Kata’ib Hizballah, an Iran-backed terrorist organization.

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