Operation TorNado: 354 Arrests in Largest Dark Web Drug Sweep, US Says

WASHINGTON, November 12, 2026 – The United States and partners in 13 other countries have announced the results of Operation TorNado, which the US Department of Justice and the FBI describe as the largest coordinated crackdown to date on drug vendors and buyers operating on the dark web.

The Justice Department, acting through the Joint Criminal Opioid and Darknet Enforcement (JCODE) team, said the operation produced 354 arrests worldwide, including 132 in the United States, and the seizure of about 5.7 metric tonnes of illicit drugs, more than US$234 million in cash and virtual currencies, 209 firearms and 38 pill presses. The drugs seized included fentanyl and other opioids, methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine, ecstasy and MDMA, the department said. Europol, which coordinated the European side of the effort, confirmed the arrest total and said the operation ran from May 2025 to October 2026, with hundreds of house searches worldwide.

The White House highlighted the results on its official X account on November 14, calling TorNado “the largest interagency crackdown of dark web drug vendors and buyers to date” and warning that offenders “can’t hide behind technology”.

“Nothing will stop the Trump Administration from identifying and dismantling drug trafficking networks,” Attorney General Todd Blanche said in the Justice Department statement. FBI Director Kash Patel said the bureau and its partners had “collectively seized 5.7 metric tons of illicit drugs, including deadly fentanyl, as well as $234 million in cryptocurrency and cash”, and that “criminals cannot hide behind technology or geography”.

According to the department, arrests were also made in the United Kingdom (59), Hungary (45), Germany (41), France (23), New Zealand (13), the Netherlands (12), Slovenia (11), Austria (6), Ireland (5), Czechia (4), Australia (2) and Finland (1). Investigators targeted vendors and buyers who had been active on dark-web markets previously seized by law enforcement, including Archetyp, Bohemia, Nemesis, Kingdom and Tor2Door. The Justice Department said TorNado was the sixth, and most extensive, internationally coordinated JCODE action since the team was created in 2018, and that it built on last year’s Operation RapTor. A number of investigations are still under way to identify people behind remaining accounts.

US officials presented a series of federal cases as examples, including prosecutions of vendors accused of mailing counterfeit pills and other narcotics across dozens of states, in some instances after overdoses were linked to the products. Those cases have yet to be tried, and the defendants are entitled to the presumption of innocence.

Why it matters

The dark web has become a parallel marketplace for synthetic opioids and other drugs that can be paid for in cryptocurrency and sent through ordinary postal systems. A takedown on this scale, if the official figures hold, shows how far police agencies have gone in piercing services that were designed for anonymity, and how much of the trade still depends on cross-border cooperation. It does not, on its own, end the market: new vendors and new platforms typically appear after large operations.

For Malaysia, the case is a reminder that online drug markets do not stop at national borders. Synthetic opioids and other controlled substances move through the same global postal and messaging channels that Malaysian agencies already monitor, and regional forces routinely work with Interpol and counterparts in Europe, Australia and the United States. The operation also underlines the growing overlap between cybercrime, financial investigation and narcotics work, a mix that Malaysia’s own enforcement agencies are having to master as more trafficking shifts off the street and onto encrypted networks.

Sources: US Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Europol. First flagged on X by the White House.

About The Author

Laura AI

See author's posts