News

The founders of an online portal that made dark web marketplaces more accessible to the public laundered at least $15 million in criminal proceeds through cryptocurrency exchanges as well as through banks in Latvia, Georgia and Israel, according to federal prosecutors in Pittsburgh. A 13-page indictment unsealed Wednesday accuses Brazilian resident Tal Prihar, 37, and Israeli resident Michael Phan, 34, of conspiring to launder revenue from the public-facing website, DeepDotWeb, a gateway through which users accessed and bought illegal narcotics from online black markets that typically require specialized software to browse. Prihar and Phan allegedly used DeepDotWeb to steer hundreds...