Milomir Desnica has been charged by the United States Department of Justice of operating the website known as Monopoly Market and enabling the unlawful sale of drugs totaling $18 million via the use of cryptocurrency. According to the Austrian Federal Criminal Police, Desnica, who is a citizen of both Croatia and Serbia, was detained in Vienna in November of last year and turned over to the authorities in the United States on Friday.
Europol made the announcement earlier in the month of May that they had arrested 288 people in connection to the drug trafficking that occurred on Monopoly Market. Two years had passed after German officials had clandestinely taken control of the market’s underlying infrastructure before the arrests were announced.
The program gave law enforcement the ability to covertly monitor drug transactions and payments made on the marketplace, in addition to analyzing conversations between the operator of the market and suppliers. Because of this investigation, law enforcement was able to determine that Desnica was the person responsible for operating Monopoly Market.
One of the most significant law enforcement operations ever carried out against a darknet marketplace was the takedown of the Monopoly Market. The arrests that occurred as a direct consequence of this outdid the 150 arrests that occurred after the shutdown of DarkMarket in 2021 and the 179 arrests that occurred after the shutdown of Wall Street Market in 2019.
It is alleged that Milomir Desnica launched and has been operating Monopoly since late 2019, utilizing the platform to enable the sale of a variety of substances including opiates, stimulants, psychedelics, and prescription pharmaceuticals among others. According to the DOJ, he generated nearly $18 million in profits on the network via transactions using cryptocurrencies.
As stated in the indictment that was made public on Friday, Desnica has been on law enforcement’s wanted list since July of last year. He was only recently extradited from Austria to face charges in Washington, D.C. Among the allegations that have been brought against him are those of money laundering, possession of nearly 50 grams of methamphetamine, and distribution of the drug.
It is believed that Desnica utilized at least two different bitcoin trading platforms in order to conceal his illegal earnings. According to the prosecution, he subsequently “cleaned” his winnings by selling the cryptocurrency to peer-to-peer traders headquartered in Serbia in return for fiat cash. This was all done in an attempt to “clean” his earnings.
In the event that she is found guilty, Desnica may be subject to the maximum possible sentence of life in prison in addition to financial repercussions.
Working as a cyber security solutions architect, Alisa focuses on bug bounty and network security. Before joining us she held a cyber security researcher positions within a variety of cyber security start-ups. She also experience in different industry domains like finance, healthcare and consumer products.