Four face federal charges in California in alleged global dark web drug ring
A global dragnet to take down a worldwide drug marketplace on the dark web landed charges Thursday against four men in federal court in California, including one in Sacramento.
Marcos Paulo De Oliveira-Annibale, 29, of Sao Paulo, Brazil, known by his online moniker “MED3LIN,” was charged in U.S. District Court in Sacramento with federal drug distribution and money laundering charges connected to the Wall Street Marketplace, the federal Drug Enforcement Agency announced Friday in a news release.
“We are on the hunt for even the tiniest of breadcrumbs to identify criminals on the dark web,” said U.S. Attorney McGregor W. Scott for the Eastern District of California, in the statement announcing the complaint. “The prosecution of these defendants shows that even the smallest mistake will allow us to figure out a cybercriminal’s true identity. No matter where they live, we will investigative and prosecute criminals who create, maintain, and promote dark web marketplaces to sell illegal drugs and other contraband.”
The operation also netted the three German nationals held in Germany but charged in Los Angeles federal court with masterminding and administrating the vast marketplace.
The multinational probe “held accountable sophisticated actors who operated one of the largest known encrypted marketplaces in the shadowy environment of the Darknet,” Paul Delacourt, assistant director of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, said in a statement. “Dark markets offer no safe haven.”
The global online superstore for the underground drug trade, the WSM as it is known, sold illegal drugs and other goods to more than 1 million customers, federal prosecutors allege.
DEA officials remarked at the network’s sophistication Friday: WSM is available in six languages; the alleged online drug bazaar gave space to some 5,400 vendors to serve about 1.15 million global customers. Its website had the look of conventional websites, but DEA officials said, “it was a hidden service located beyond the reach of traditional internet browsers.” WSM used a network service that concealed user identities, DEA officials said.
Federal prosecutors say Annibale was the marketplace’s mediator, the man who brought feuding vendors and customers to the negotiating table, and the publicity man who spread the word of WSM on Reddit and other websites, according to a federal complaint. Annibale’s case was unsealed Friday when warrant-armed Brazilian authorities executed a search of his residence.
As European authorities began to close in on WSM, the site’s German administrators plotted an “exit scam,” cleaning out all of the virtual cash squirreled away in its escrow accounts and user accounts and funneling the money into their own accounts, DEA officials alleged.
By mid-April, WSM’s global popularity led yet more vendors to the site only to find they couldn’t access their virtual cash placed in their accounts. The “exit scam” was on and German authorities were hot on the trail. Arrests and search warrants followed.
Two Sacramento residents were among the vendors caught up in the vast anti-drug operation. Jose Robert Porras III, 21, and Pasia Vue, 23, both of Sacramento, were charged with drug distribution, money laundering, and illegally possessing firearms, authorities said.
A Sacramento federal grand jury returned a 16-count indictment in the case, said U.S. Attorney’s officials in Sacramento. The indictment alleges Porras and Vue used the online monikers “Cannabars” and “TheFastPlug,” to distribute marijuana, Xanax, and methamphetamine on various dark web marketplaces, including Wall Street Marketplace.
This story was originally published May 3, 2019 at 12:26 PM.