On November 9, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed sanctions on three individuals and nine entities linked to a darknet marketplace and research chemicals group.
The Treasury has identified more than 50 virtual wallet addresses associated with this operation and has expressed its commitment to taking additional measures to combat the misuse of virtual currency.
Among those sanctioned are two Dutch nationals, Alex Adrianus Martinus and Martinus Pterus Henri De Koning, who were involved in the illicit sale of synthetic substances on darknet marketplaces. Subsequently, they utilized their own website, promoted through popular social media advertisements. Despite being arrested by the National Police of the Netherlands in 2017, the individuals were released shortly after and continued their online activities. It is reported that they amassed over $2 million in virtual currency from sales through their seized website, therealarc.com, between November 2018 and February 2021.
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Operating in a gray area, their business activities were cloaked under legitimate companies established in the Netherlands, enabling them to accept various forms of payment, including bank transfers.
This incident marks not the first time that OFAC has targeted activities related to fentanyl. In April 2018, OFAC designated Jian Zhang, and later, in August 2019, it redesignated fentanyl traffickers Fujin Zheng and Xiaobing Yan under the SDNTK (Specially Designated Narcotics Traffickers Kingpin) program.