The U.S. Department of Justice and Europol announced Thursday that Operation TorNado has resulted in 354 arrests and the seizure of more than $234 million in cash and virtual currencies, in what the FBI described as the largest takedown to date of dark web drug vendors and buyers.

The announcement was made by the Justice Department's Joint Criminal Opioid and Darknet Enforcement team, or JCODE, an FBI-led group established in 2018. Officials said Operation TorNado is the sixth — and most extensive — internationally coordinated action conducted since the team's creation, building on last year's Operation RapTor. The enforcement sweep ran from May 2025 to October 2026. That cadence has made coordinated, cross-border sweeps a standing feature of dark web enforcement rather than isolated events.

Europol, which coordinated the work with agencies in 14 countries, published a parallel statement the same day. The operation targeted vendors and buyers who had been active on five dark web markets already seized by law enforcement — Archetyp, Bohemia, Nemesis, Kingdom and Tor2Door — and also identified accounts on DrugHub as well as on forums, single-vendor shops and encrypted messaging services. Dark web markets are e-commerce sites reachable only through anonymizing networks such as Tor, and cryptocurrency has long been their standard payment method.

Worldwide seizures included roughly 5.7 metric tons of illicit drugs, among them fentanyl and other opioids, methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine, ecstasy and MDMA, along with 38 pill presses and 209 firearms. Neither the Justice Department nor Europol broke down the $234 million total between cash and cryptocurrency, and neither named bitcoin or any other specific coin in the official figures.

Europol put the European share at more than €60 million in cash and cryptocurrencies, alongside 950 kilograms of drugs and 57 firearms. The U.S. share was reported at more than €150 million, or $166 million, in cash and cryptocurrencies, plus more than 4.8 metric tons of drugs and 152 firearms. Those regional monetary figures likewise combine cash and crypto. Europol said its forensic and blockchain analysis teams traced illicit transactions as part of the operation.

Individual cases point to Monero and bitcoin

The closest official window into how the vendors were paid comes from the cases highlighted by the Justice Department and from the court papers posted alongside the announcement. The two currencies named in those cases differ sharply in design: bitcoin runs on a public ledger that anyone, including blockchain-analysis teams, can examine, while Monero is built to conceal senders, recipients and amounts by default.

Alexander Green, 32, of Jacksonville, North Carolina, was arrested in June and charged in the Southern District of Ohio with conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, including fentanyl. According to the department, he allegedly operated a vendor called STARLABS on DrugHub, which it described as a Monero-only dark web market, and the group has been linked to two overdose deaths. A criminal complaint states that undercover purchases from STARLABS were made "in exchange for cryptocurrency." If convicted, Green faces up to 20 years in prison.

In a separate arrest in Florida, brothers Stanislav Chernyshov, 30, and Vladislav Chernyshov, 35, are charged in the Eastern District of Virginia with conspiracy to distribute Schedule I synthetic opioids. Prosecutors say the pair allegedly ran the vendor "BarbaraWhite," selling counterfeit oxycodone pills laced with nitazenes and shipping more than 1,000 parcels across 49 states. A search-warrant affidavit describes bitcoin transfers tied to that account and the Nemesis market. Each brother faces up to 20 years if convicted.

132 arrests in the United States, and more work ahead

Operation TorNado produced 132 arrests in the United States, 59 in the United Kingdom, 45 in Hungary and 41 in Germany, along with arrests in France, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Austria, Ireland, Czechia, Australia and Finland. The department said a number of investigations remain ongoing to identify the people behind the remaining dark web accounts.

FBI Director Kash Patel called Operation TorNado "the largest interagency takedown of Dark Web drug vendors and buyers to date." IRS Criminal Investigation Chief Jarod Koopman, whose agency was part of the JCODE group, placed the financial dimension at the center: "Criminal networks may operate across borders and in the shadows of the Dark Web, but they cannot operate without money."

Federal prosecutions are underway in more than 20 districts. An indictment or complaint only alleges that crimes were committed, and the defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

What the announcement does not settle is how much of the $234 million was cryptocurrency — and how much of that was bitcoin. Officials have not said. The record on Operation TorNado reflects a combined cash-and-crypto seizure, a Monero-only market in at least one featured case and bitcoin transfers cited in court papers, without a breakdown of the total. For now, the combined figure is the only accounting published; any fuller split between cash and crypto would have to come from official disclosures or court filings as the prosecutions proceed.

This article first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.