WASHINGTON — The Justice Department said Thursday that Operation TorNado, a dark web drug investigation run with Europol, led to 354 arrests worldwide and the seizure of more than $234 million in cash and virtual currencies.
The money was only part of it. Investigators seized about 5.7 metric tons of illicit drugs, the department said. Fentanyl and other opioids were in the mix, along with methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine, ecstasy and MDMA. They also seized 38 pill presses and 209 firearms.
Of the arrests, 132 were in the United States. The United Kingdom had 59, Hungary 45, Germany 41 and France 23. The rest were in New Zealand, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Austria, Ireland, Czechia, Finland and Australia, the department said.
The department called the work the sixth, and the most extensive, internationally coordinated action since the Joint Criminal Opioid and Darknet Enforcement team, known as JCODE, was created in 2018. It built on last year’s Operation RapTor.
“Nothing will stop the Trump Administration from identifying and dismantling drug trafficking networks,” said Attorney General Todd Blanche. “Thanks to our partnerships with state, federal, and international law enforcement through the Joint Criminal Opioid and Darknet Enforcement (JCODE) team, Operation TorNado crippled Dark Web market vendors and will bring alleged drug traffickers to justice.”
Where the sellers operated
The vendors and buyers had been active, the department said, on prominent dark web markets that law enforcement has seized, including Archetyp, Bohemia, Nemesis, Kingdom and Tor2Door. Other accounts were tied to DrugHub and other markets.
After earlier takedowns, agencies in the United States and abroad used intelligence from those cases to identify people behind vendor accounts. The department said the sellers had engaged in tens of thousands of sales of illicit goods and services across the United States, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
“Operation TorNado is the largest interagency takedown of Dark Web drug vendors and buyers to date, resulting in 354 arrests worldwide, including 132 in the United States,”
Cases already filed
The operation ran from May 2025 to October 2026. Dozens of federal prosecutions have followed, the department said, in more than 20 federal districts. A number of investigations are still ongoing to identify the people behind other dark web accounts.
In one Florida case, two brothers, Stanislav Chernyshov, 30, and Vladislav Chernyshov, 35, were arrested for allegedly operating a vendor called “BarbaraWhite.” The department said it sold counterfeit oxycodone M30 pills laced with nitazenes, synthetic opioids that can equal or surpass fentanyl’s potency, and that more than 1,000 parcels were shipped across 49 states. Each brother faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison if convicted, the department said.
Another case named Jonatan Gonzales, 35, of South Bakersfield, California. He was arrested after being identified, the department said, as a vendor called “SpeedyPharma” who shipped methamphetamine, black tar heroin, cocaine and K2 paper to addresses in western Pennsylvania and to all other 49 states. He faces a maximum penalty of life in prison if convicted.
The Justice Department said an indictment and criminal complaint merely allege that crimes have been committed, and that defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
Who took part
JCODE members led the work in the United States. The list includes the Justice Department, the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, Homeland Security Investigations, IRS Criminal Investigation, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and other federal agencies.
Europol and Eurojust helped coordinate abroad, the department said, with partners that included the Australian Federal Police, Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office, France’s National Gendarmerie, Ireland’s Garda National Cyber Crime Bureau, New Zealand Police and the United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency.
“Drug traffickers are exploiting the dark web to distribute fentanyl and other deadly drugs into American communities, profiting from addiction and overdose deaths,” said Terrance Cole, the administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration.