Until a few weeks ago, sinmed was one of the largest drug vendors at Dream Market, the foremost dark web bazaar. It took in millions of dollars shipping fentanyl-laced heroin, methamphetamines, and hundreds of thousands of counterfeit Xanax tablets across the US—until the New York district attorney's office shut it down, and arrested the three men who allegedly ran it.

Dark web takedowns happen all the time. But sinmed was a power player, among Dream Market's top 3 percent of vendors in terms of sheer transactions. And its rise and fall, as detailed by Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance and a recently unsealed indictment, shows not only how dark web storefronts operate, but also how law enforcement at every level has become increasingly savvy at tracking them down.

Act Local

When you read about dark web takedowns, they typically involve sweeping actions by federal agencies. The Joint Criminal Opioid and Darknet Enforcement team—made up of agents from the FBI, DEA, CBP, and more—announced in March that it had made 61 arrests and shuttered 50 accounts related to dark web activity as part of Operation SaboTor, a crackdown months in the making.

"It is definitely a significant arrest." Nicolas Christin, Carnegie Mellon University

But while the sinmed case involved cooperation from the Secret Service, US Postal Inspection Service, and Homeland Security Investigations, it originated—unusually—with the Manhattan DA. More precisely, with a tip the DA's office received in 2017 about good old-fashioned suspicious ATM withdrawals.

“For time immemorial we have been saying that in cases of economic crime, it’s really all about following the money,” Manhattan district attorney Cy Vance said at a press conference Tuesday announcing the charges. “Pulling the thread and following the money in 2019 today is about knowing where to look on the internet and in cyberspace.”

Sinmed Inc.

In late March 2016, the unsealed indictment alleges, 51-year-old Ronald MacCarty ordered 10 kilograms of microcrystalline cellulose from an unspecified vendor. It was the first of at least nine such orders he and Chester Arthur would place over the following two years; by May 2018, the size had grown to 500 kilograms.

On its own, MCC is harmless, mostly used as a binding agent. You can buy it on Amazon. But you can also use it to make pills. According to court documents, Anderson and MacCarty methodically worked their way up to doing just that. In July 2016, the two incorporated a company called Next Level Research and Development. From there, they attempted to buy a kilogram of alprazolam—sold commercially as Xanax—as well as a vial filling and capping machine, a powder mixer, a tablet press machine, and Xanax punch dies. Everything you need, as the indictment says, “to manufacture and sell tablets containing controlled substances.”

Over the course of their operation, according to the Manhattan district attorney’s office, Anderson and MacCarty—along with Jarrette Codd—shipped more than 1,000 packages to buyers in 43 states, laundering $2.3 million in cryptocurrency along the way. At the time of the trio’s arrest on April 4, investigators seized 420,000 to 620,000 alprazolam tablets, 500 glassines of fentanyl-laced heroin, and assorted other drugs. All three men have pleaded not guilty.