The United States Department of Justice has recently launched yet another high-profile attempt for busting the drug-dealers who have currently kept their tracks hidden on the dark web.
The new J-CODE team (Joint Criminal Opioid Darknet Enforcement) is backed by U.S.Attorney General Jeff Sessions and will particularly focus on the illegal manufacturing and sale of opioids on darknet markets.
This initiative comes after Sessions announced a new Opioid Fraud and Abuse Detection Unit last fall, which aims to employ data analysis to identify drug dealers.
Back in October 2017, U.S. President Trump referred to the use and abuse of opioid as a public health emergency and with this recent move, he's probably gearing up for some solid action.
It has been observed that in the year 2016, more than 64,000 Americans died from drug overdoses. This was a whopping 21 percent increase from the previous year.
From the nature of the new DoJ initiative, it is evident that the government is trying to amass support from citizens with the new taskforce expected to crackdown on the sale of drugs on the dark web.
With several hundreds of special agents and intelligence analysts in their team, J-CODE is likely to double the investment of Federal Bureau of Investigation in fighting dark web opioid trafficking.
In addition to the agents and analysts, the federal government is also assigning new staff members to focus on specific roles related to drug busts.
Jeff Sessions stated in the official J-CODE announcement that criminals assume that they are well protected on the dark web, so this new initiative is going to be a brutal awakening for them.
He further added that the taskforce has already managed to infiltrate their networks and is strongly driven to bring them in justice.
In the midst of the current drug crisis in the U.S., both the FBI and the DoJ are driven to curb the use and abuse of potentially harmful drugs.
In an attempt to reach their goal, they have stepped up in their investment which they feel is a big move in fighting against the opioid-related crimes.
Sessions further added that the J-CODE Team will help the government in shutting down the dark web drug-dealing portals that are widely chartered by drug traffickers.
Both the J-CODE team and the federal government are hopeful that this move will help them reduce the rates of addiction and overdoses throughout the U.S.
Interestingly, while the law enforcement teams have indeed cracked a couple of darknet markets in the past, they have significantly relied on offline data and the mistakes made by the dealers.
This further helped them in infiltrating the network.
Meanwhile, the detractors of law enforcement programs like J-CODE claim that the recent dark web takedowns are a major diversion from the actual issue.
The legal availability of opioids as prescription drugs is a problem that continues to fuel the drug crisis in the U.S.
According to detractors, this is one such issue that the federal government hasn't focused on enough. Unlike the U.K., which attempts to control the problem with their stringent National Health Service guidelines, the U.S. hasn't really progressed in this particular department.
Other groups are contending these statements from the detractors. According them, the issue of the current opiate epidemic is not because of the pharmaceutical companies or illicit use and abuse of opiates.
They rather feel that the root of this issue lies in the influx of fentanyl, which is manufactured and imported overseas and across the U.S. border.
They claim that in the year 2010, before this massive influx of fentanyl, around 3,100 people died of opiate overdoses. This is indeed a small number compared to the current scenario.
As we know that 64,000 people died in 2016, it is evident that the trade of fentanyl is a critical issue that needs to be tackled.
The abuse and availability of this system is being tackled, with several bipartisan law enforcement officials stepping up their efforts to crackdown on the illegal drugs trade on darknet markets.
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