The FBI continues to strengthen its efforts to disrupt and dismantle transnational organized criminal groups as more of them use the Darknet to perpetuate the opioid epidemic.

Audio Transcript

Mollie Halpern: The FBI continues to strengthen its efforts to disrupt and dismantle transnational organized criminal groups as more of them use the Darknet to perpetuate the opioid epidemic.

The FBI’s Hi-Tech Organized Crime Unit—established just more than a year ago—is seeing a new wave of organized crime that can be challenging to trace.

Unit Chief Emily Odom …

Emily Odom: The anonymity that the Internet provides allows them to seemingly operate with impunity. And so a big goal of ours is to let them know that even if you're selling less than a gram of fentanyl on the Internet, we can still find you, and we're still doing things to target you.

Halpern: In addition to using investigative tools to target online drug traffickers, agents are also reaching out to the community.

In a recent weeklong operation, agents spoke to hundreds of people.

Odom: And as we're engaging people, we provided pamphlets to try to encourage them if they're confronted with options of taking opioids to seek help.

Halpern: To learn about the dangers of opioid addiction, watch Chasing the Dragon, a documentary on fbi.gov.

With FBI, This Week, I’m Mollie Halpern of the Bureau.