Kofi Anash 
The police today arrested six people from Noord-Holland who are suspected of having traded hard drugs via a webshop on the so-called dark web. The suspects from Amsterdam, Diemen and Assendelft are said to have made a turnover of tens of millions of euros.
The police tracked down the webshop called DutchMasters when the illegal online marketplace Wallstreet Market was dismantled in May 2019.
In addition to drugs, weapons, forged documents and malware were also sold there. Of the traders who used the platform, DutchMasters turned out to be one of the bigger ones. They would have delivered drugs worldwide through postal parcel companies.
By collecting information about the webshop in both the real and the digital world, investigators and cyber specialists have succeeded in establishing the identity of the people behind it.
Among the six suspects are five men and one woman, aged 33 to 51 years. In their arrest earlier today, the police confiscated cash, expensive watches, a Porsche and data in addition to drugs.
The six people are suspected of both trading and producing hard drugs. In September last year, the DutchMasters ecstasy distribution line was rolled up.
At the time, the police arrested three suspects who were engaged in packaging, labeling and shipping the postal parcels. Research showed that at least 135 packages containing 5,000 pills had been distributed around the world through this line in the previous three months.
In the same month, the police dismantled an ecstasy laboratory in Maartensdijk (province of Utrecht), where DutchMasters produced the party drug.
Among other things, a 36-year-old man from Uithoorn was arrested. The police suspect that the suspects have not made or had made ecstasy since then.
