A 24 year old Slovakian man named Juraj was recently arrested and charged for distributing and manufacturing marijuana. Though not a dangerous drug, marijuana is still illegal so, authorities followed suit during a previous investigation targeting Dark Web drug trafficking.
Authorities have stated they are not releasing many details because the investigation is ongoing. They have released information regarding the amount Juraj was caught with: 25 marijuana plant seedlings and nearly 10kg of finished product. Juraj carried out his marijuana distributing activities on several marketplaces on the Dark Web but mainly used Dream Market.
Slovakian law enforcement admitted they had a hard time tracking the offender down due to his use of anonymity services and the cryptocurrency known as bitcoin. The police in this case made a Facebook post about the bust including their belief that Juraj had been growing the illegal plants from his family home since June 2016.
Juraj was operating on a large scale that included shipping the product to numerous countries. Some of which were the UK, Bosnia, Turkey, Italy, Germany, France and Hungary. Authorities also stated Juraj used special envelopes in order to better disguise the illegal drugs sent to customers through the postal service.
Once authorities narrowed down Juraj’s location, a residential search warrant was issued, which is where police finally had enough evidence to arrest and charge the man. Digital evidence was found that pointed towards Juraj’s Dark Web activities and allowed authorities to connect him with the vendor account that belonged to the user “CzechoSlovakFarm” on Dream Market.
Law enforcement has estimated the value of the marijuana found in the apartment to be worth nearly $120k. They determined this value after comparing the amount found to Juraj’s marketplace posts, which came out to about $10 to $12 per gram of product. The court will decide where the case will head to next at a later date.
