DeepDotWeb Administrator Sentenced to Eight Years in Prison

The administrator of the DeepDotWeb portal (one of two) was sentenced to 97 months in prison for receiving money from illegal dark web marketplaces that paid to advertise their sites.

In 2019, the FBI, Europol, as well as the law enforcement agencies of Germany, Israel, the Netherlands and Brazil, carried out a joint operation, as a result of which the DeepDotWeb site, which talked about dark web news and cataloged resources from the “underside of the Internet”, was shut down. This “guide” to the darknet was updated daily, and it promptly reported on the closure of certain resources, their new addresses, exit scams, told other problems of trading platforms, and so on.

Then it was reported that DeepDotWeb operators received a certain “commission” for redirecting traffic to illegal sites on the dark web.

In 2019, one of those arrested was 37-year-old Tal Prihar, an Israeli citizen living in Brazil. He was charged with administering DeepDotWeb.

U.S. authorities said Prihar, along with his partner, Michael Phan, 34, from Israel, used a complex “kickback” scheme when they posted links to marketplaces on their website. In the end, this scheme brought them approximately 8155 bitcoins, which at the time of the transactions was equal to approximately 8.4 million US dollars. This money was subsequently laundered to hide its origin.

Prikhar pleaded guilty to money laundering back in March 2021. His partner, Michael Fan, was arrested in Israel but is still fighting extradition to the US.

Let me remind you that we also reported that Law enforcement arrested 150 darknet sellers.