Darknet Drug Trafficking ring who operated via darknet busted in Vienna – The Vienna police have stopped online drug traffickers, three people are in custody, two were at large. The main culprit is a 24-year-old Viennese, also in custody sit his 19-year-old ex-and the 22-year-old current partner. Via Darknet, they ordered drugs, deposited them under containers and provided their customers with the associated GPS data.
The perpetrators “showed a very conspiratorial behavior,” said Colonel Gerhard Winkler, head of the South Branch of the State Office of Criminal Investigation Vienna at a press conference on Wednesday. The investigators ensured addictive substances worth 350,000 euros. In various depots of the perpetrator group they found 16.5 kilograms of metamphetamine, 1.5 kilograms of MDMA and half a kilogram of cocaine with a purity of 95 percent, more than one kilogram of the anesthetic ketamine.
For one and a half years, the man and his girlfriends have ordered via Darknet drugs portioned in a forest near Mistelbach and hidden under glass or clothing containers in Vienna and so brought to their customers. The synthetic addictive substances were delivered to wrong addresses. The 24-year-old and his girlfriend were arrested in mid-September when they were picking up an amphetamine package weighing more than 14 kilograms at a post office in Vienna.
Winkler spoke of a “group of offenders of the generation 4.0”. They had carried out their criminal activities using “all electronic media”. The 24-year-old ordered drugs in the Darknet , paid with cryptocurrency and specified as delivery address empty apartments. Lists of such freestanding objects can also be found in the Darknet. The orders were then delivered to the accommodations, and sometimes the young man “went unceremoniously to the post office and picked up parcels”, reported Winkler.
Drug users initially got to know the Viennese “in an analogous way at various rave parties”. Subsequently, the “orders were carried out virtually and via messenger services”. The customers were given “GPS data, where the order is placed in public space, usually under glass or waste paper containers,” Winkler reported. The customers picked up their drugs there and deposited cash, which was subsequently collected by the dealers.
As an industrial park, the dealers defined outlying districts in the federal capital, their addictive substances they deposited primarily in Hietzing and Liesing . In a forest near Mistelbach , the drugs were stored, with a tablet press machine, they were portioned for the customers. The portable, around 100 kilograms heavy equipment was also ensured.
In March, the investigators first encountered the perpetrators. Customs ensured a “suspicious shipment from Holland “. In five packages, addictive substances were sent, mainly amphetamine and MDMA. Also, the 24-year-old came in the course of the investigation in Germany in a police check.
After a major drug order from the Netherlands , which he made personally, he was stopped on the way back in Mönchen-Gladbach by the German police. He was under the influence of drugs on the way, also hit drug detection dogs in the search of the car, was found in the vehicle but nothing more.
Extensive observations and investigations were the result. When the 24-year-old and his 19-year-old friend picked up a package of around 14 kilograms of amphetamine at the post office in September, they were arrested. The main perpetrator has already been convicted and has according to investigators on a “high criminal energy”.
His current girlfriend “support him again and again in all sorts of activities,” said the criminologists. The 22-year-old ex-girlfriend worked primarily as a subdealer. The trio is in custody, while the Viennese and his partner are silent, the 22-year-old confessed. Another man and a woman were reported for drug trafficking.
For dealers who order via Darknet, it has to do with perpetrators, “who have no criminal background, often in the early 20s and so slip into the worst drug crime,” said Robert Taferner , Head of the Unit Substance Trafficking via mail and Internet in the Federal Criminal Office . They “have an internet connection,” said the expert. “Anyone who can google can buy drugs online ,” said the investigator. “The end users not only lose their money, they also get home visits from us,” warned Taferner .
Since 2016, the authorities in Austria have secured more than 10,000 drug programs, around 340 kilograms of drugs , including 90,000 tablets. This was done by “random customs controls”. Online are mainly ordered synthetic drugs , cocaine, for example, have an “above-average quality”. Eighty-five percent of addiction is due to the Netherlands , the expert reported.
Organized crime “has long recognized that it can make the profit of their lives through online commerce,” said Taferner . While in the past criminal energy was needed to get drugs , now every 16-year-old could be delivered to the farthest corners of Austria . In any case, the police will continue to “ensure rigorously” and intensify their actions.