New team targets online opioid sales fueling the drug crisis

WASHINGTON » His moniker was “DARKKING22,” and authorities say he offered a cornucopia of illicit drugs through the click of a mouse.

But it was his ads on a hidden website for pure fentanyl, the powerful painkiller driving a record number of overdose deaths across the U.S., that caught FBI agents’ attention. They bought some, and days later it arrived in a small, clear, plastic bag complete with a thank-you card, a sign of how easy it is to buy drugs on the so-called darknet.

The dealer did not stay anonymous for long. Federal authorities say “DARKKING22” was 28-year-old Antoin Austin, of Euclid, Ohio. His arrest last week is among the first by a new team of federal agents, computer experts and analysts tasked with fighting the kind of online opioid trafficking that law enforcement officials say can be more persistent and vexing than more traditional trafficking by cartels.

Frustrating authorities in their pursuit of online dealers is the anonymity in which they work. Buyers access stores through secret web browsers and make purchases using encrypted channels, code names and virtual currency such as Bitcoin.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions said darknet vendors are “pouring fuel on the fire of the national drug epidemic” and this year doubled the number of federal agents working on those cases. It’s part of the Trump administration’s tough approach to the drug crisis that has focused on harsh punishments for dealers. Critics say the overall strategy resembles a return to failed drug-war tactics and that the record $4.6 billion included in the spending plan the president signed last month is not nearly enough to establish the kind of treatment system needed to reverse the crisis.

But there’s bipartisan agreement that more resources and new restrictions are needed to stem the stream of opioids entering the U.S. from overseas, especially China, and into households through the U.S. mail.

Darknet marketplaces are thriving, even after authorities in recent years dismantled two of the most notorious, the Silk Road and AlphaBay, where hundreds of thousands of customers bought not just illegal drugs but weapons, malware and counterfeit and stolen identification. Authorities on the new task force, the Joint Criminal Opioid Darknet Enforcement team, in this case targeted the vendors who sell illicit fentanyl by mail.

“It’s not enough simply to take the sites down,” Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Richard Downing said. “Vendors look for another opportunity, another site, another place where they can go and sell their drugs and guns.”