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Russian police pull the plug on major online narcotics ‘drugstore’

The police operation was launched after a series of high-profile media publications revealed the financial scale of this narcotics store

MOSCOW, September 19. /TASS/. Police have put the final nail into the coffin of the country’s largest narcotics ‘drugstore’, which is The Russian Anonymous Marketplace or RAMP, operating in the Russian segment of the Tor anonymous network, a senior Interior Ministry official said on Tuesday.

"The activity of the RAMP trade platform, the largest one in the Russian-language segment of Tor, was halted in July 2017 as a result of operations," Deputy Russian Interior Minister Mikhail Vanichkin said in a letter sent upon the request of Russian MP Anton Gorelkin.

RAMP had operated for more than five years in the so-called darknet, which is unavailable for ordinary Internet users. The police operation was launched after a series of high-profile media publications revealed the financial scale of this narcotics store, the lawmaker said.

Throughout the first six months of 2017, some 3,775 drug-related crimes committed with the use of Internet technologies were detected and 1,583 individuals were held criminally liable. More than 760 kg of drugs were seized and 1,345 Internet resources that had been used for selling drugs in Russia were closed down.