The US Department of Justice, working with the FBI and Europol, announced Thursday that Operation TorNado resulted in 354 arrests of dark web drug vendors and buyers across the United States, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. Authorities seized more than $234 million in cash and virtual currencies and approximately 5.7 metric tons of illicit drugs, including fentanyl and other synthetic opioids.
Operation TorNado ran from May 2025 through October 2026 under the Joint Criminal Opioid and Darknet Enforcement (JCODE) team. It was the sixth and largest internationally coordinated action since JCODE was established in 2018. Investigators used intelligence from five major dark web marketplaces previously seized by police: Archetyp, Bohemia, Nemesis, Kingdom, and Tor2Door. The 354 arrests spanned 14 countries, including 132 in the United States, 59 in the United Kingdom, 45 in Hungary, 41 in Germany, 23 in France, and 13 in New Zealand. Authorities also seized 38 pill presses, 209 firearms, methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine, and MDMA alongside synthetic opioids.
Federal prosecutors are pursuing indictments across more than 20 US judicial districts. In the Eastern District of Virginia, brothers Stanislav and Vladislav Chernyshov were arrested in Florida for allegedly operating a vendor account named "BarbaraWhite." Investigators linked the brothers to over 1,000 counterfeit oxycodone parcels laced with potent nitazenes shipped across 49 states, tied to fatal overdoses. In the Southern District of Ohio, Alexander Green of North Carolina was charged with operating the "STARLABS" trafficking ring on the Drughub dark web market. Authorities linked his fentanyl sales to two fatal overdoses in Ohio, seizing over two kilograms of counterfeit pills and 200 grams of methamphetamine. If convicted, the defendants face up to 20 years in federal prison.
