According to Foresight News, citing Decrypt, the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) recently announced the dismantling of India's "most active Dark Web drug gang" by arresting a 35-year-old mechanical engineer named Edison, who allegedly operated a nationwide drug Dark Web trading network without his family's knowledge and used the privacy coin Monero (XMR) for money laundering to evade law enforcement tracking.
In the operation codenamed "Operation MELON", NCB seized 1,127 LSD drug stickers, 131 grams of ketamine, and cryptocurrency assets worth over $82,000 (approximately 700,000 rupees), along with crypto tools used for Dark Web trading. Officials stated that the suspect is currently India's only "Level 4" Dark Web drug dealer, with the Dark Web codename "Ketamelon".
NCB indicated that Edison purchased drugs over the past two years from the UK's largest LSD supplier "Gunga Din", used Monero for money laundering, and subsequently distributed drugs to multiple major Indian cities, including Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, and northern mountain regions.
As a cryptocurrency emphasizing anonymity and privacy protection, Monero has long been a common payment tool in Dark Web transactions. Chainalysis noted that more Dark Web markets are shifting to Monero due to Bitcoin's on-chain transparency. However, Andrew Fierman, the company's national security intelligence head, pointed out that despite Monero's strong privacy attributes, it still operates on an immutable ledger, and that "complete privacy is difficult to achieve, and on-chain evidence of criminal activities will always exist."
