WASHINGTON — A global crackdown on dark web drug trafficking led to 354 arrests worldwide and the seizure of more than $234 million in cash and cryptocurrency, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Saturday, in what the FBI director called the largest coordinated enforcement action ever aimed at dark web drug sellers and buyers.
The operation, known as Operation TorNado, was coordinated by the Justice Department’s Joint Criminal Opioid and Darknet Enforcement team with Europol and law enforcement agencies in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, according to the department. Investigators seized about 5.7 metric tons of illegal drugs and 209 firearms during the effort, which ran from May 2025 through October 2026 and focused on identifying people who believed anonymous dark web accounts hid who they were.
In the United States, the investigations drew in the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, Homeland Security Investigations, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and IRS Criminal Investigation, among other agencies, according to the department. The Justice Department said the work targeted the networks that connect online marketplaces with physical drug distribution, including sellers of fentanyl and other opioids sold through the mail. All of the charges described by the department are allegations, and defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.
The announcement was the second major enforcement action the department described this week. On Thursday, the Justice Department announced coordinated actions against North Korea’s cryptocurrency theft operations, including the court-authorized seizure and restraint of more than $1.2 billion in cryptocurrency stolen from the Binance exchange in October, and the seizure of cloud infrastructure used in a scheme the FBI calls FaceStealer, which the bureau says stole more than $400 million by targeting victims, including open-source developers, through social engineering.
Officials said the two cases show the same pattern from different directions: criminal networks now move drugs and stolen money through online systems at a scale that no single country can police alone, so cases are built with foreign partners from the start. The dark web operation spanned 14 countries, according to summaries of the department’s announcement, and further arrests are possible as investigators work through seized accounts and devices.
Why it matters: fentanyl and other synthetic opioids remain the deadliest drugs in the United States, and dark web markets let sellers reach buyers in small towns as easily as in big cities. A seizure of $234 million is large, but officials did not claim the markets themselves are closed; new sellers tend to appear after takedowns, which is why the department framed the operation around arrests of people, not just the closing of websites. What happens next is the court phase, as the 354 arrested people face charges in their own countries, and as investigators decide whether the seized records support more cases.
Primary source: U.S. Department of Justice news releases (Operation TorNado announcement, November 14, 2026).
