DeepDotWeb operator sentenced to eight years for money laundering

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The former operator of DeepDotWeb was sentenced to 97 months in prison on Tuesday for money-laundering.

Tal Prihar, an Israeli national, was sentenced by a judge of the District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. Prihar was ordered by the court to give up $8.4 million in cash, along with a laptop, a black iPhone, and his accounts at several exchanges.

Prihar, an Israeli citizen, is one of the defendants in the case. The site was hosted on the open internet and provided links to dark web marketplaces and dark web services.

The FBI seized the DeepDotWeb domain as part of a coordinated operation with police in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Brazil, and Israel that resulted in multiple arrests of marketplace operators.

Prihar admitted to receiving kickbacks from dark web services featured on his site after his arrest in Brazil. These payments were converted to currency and sent to bank accounts he controlled in the name of shell companies that laundered the funds.

According to the Justice Department, Prihar's co-conspirator Michael Phan is currently in Israel and is in the process of being extradited.