Deepdotweb Operator in Prison Denied Earning of $15M from Illegal Darknet Links

Recently, an operator in Deepdotweb has argued and denied earning of $15 million through illegal darknet referral links. He refused by saying that there was no such amount. This interview was taken place in Hebrew by the attorney of Prihar, Nick Kaufman. In France, Tal Prihar, an Israeli citizen, is accused of managing many visitors in the darknet markets (DNMs).

The partner, Michael Phan, involved in the crime with Prihar does not reveal anything and remain silent. On the other hand, Prihar broke his silence and disputed the assertion by the FBI, and they have earned an amount of $15 million, which is nearly 8000 BTC according to the affiliate marketing scheme. Prihar is accused of the charge of money laundering, and he said that Deepdotweb (DDW) was a news site that attracts users and provides them information about the darknet. He continued that the website is earning a significant amount through legitimate marketing endeavors for a bitcoin casino, cryptocurrency exchanges, and anonymous VPN software.

According to the indictment of the US, Prihar, along with his business partner, directed thousands of users towards the darknet during the tenure of Deepdotweb. Users earn millions of dollars. The indictment is all about goods like cocaine, heroin, fentanyl, firearms, crystal meth, and stealing of any financial information.

Tal put forward a few things that he was not aware that he was committing a crime by listing or posting something. Their main goal was to reduce physical and mental harm by preventing crimes against the personal as well as economic freedoms. They were not informed that they were convincing the users to do something.

According to Prihar, the site was to give a warning when certain harmful things arrive like poisonings, thefts, dangers, and places that are considered to be harmful to the people. They never promoted another site or any illegal product. He doubted that many people are saved due to Deepdotweb else they would have died due to the purchases of online drugs.

Prihar stated that he and Phan are charged without any reason and charged them under anti-money laundering laws to share the referral links of a darknet market. He doesn’t think that they have committed any crime. In May, the site was seized by the FBI and removed all the news articles from the site. The FBI found thousands of articles written by multiple users at the time of closure.

Currently, Prihar is kept in an unspecified prison in a Parisian suburb, and he is complaining about the environment that the rooms are bursting with insects, and his body is covered with bleeding bites. There are rats in the yards and fear of many diseases like Tuberculosis. He is feeling sad, lonely, and thinking about his family.

After Prihar’s interview, three men were arrested and charged for operating the Berlusconi marketplace. The operating site was stopped in October, and around 2.2 Kg of drugs were captured. Berlusconi is considered to be the essential market in the dark web in terms of item quantity for sale and trade volumes with over 100,000 illegal product announcements.