Operation Onymous was a joint FBI-Europol operation in November 2014 that resulted in the seizure of over 400 .onion addresses and the arrest of 17 people across 17 countries. Most notably, it took down Silk Road 2.0 exactly one year after its launch.
Operation Results
400+
.onion sites seized
17
Arrests
$1M+
Bitcoin seized
Unanswered Questions
Law enforcement never fully explained their methodology for locating so many hidden services simultaneously. Speculation included:
- Tor vulnerabilities (denied by Tor Project)
- Bitcoin tracing to hosting providers
- Undercover operations and informants
- Server misconfiguration exploitation