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Attorney General Merrick Garland speaks during a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington, Friday, April 14, 2023, on significant international drug trafficking enforcement action.

Susan Walsh | AP

A consortium of U.S. and international law enforcement made 288 arrests and seized over $53 million in cash and crypto as part of a dark-web drug “unprecedented” enforcement action called Operation SpecTor, Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a press conference Tuesday.

“The Justice Department is cracking down on criminal cryptocurrency transactions,” Garland said, “and the online criminal marketplaces that enable them.”

Dozens of firearms and more than 850 kilograms of drugs were also seized in Operation SpecTor, an allusion to the dark-web browsing protocol. The operation was coordinated alongside Europol and resulted in the seizure of a dark-web marketplace called Monopoly Market, according to a press release from the European agency.

The operation began in Oct. 2021, Garland said.

The Justice Department said over 100 federal operations and prosecutions had been made in the U.S. Garland said 153 domestic suspects had been arrested, including a California man who allegedly sold nearly $2 million worth of fentanyl and methamphetamine on the dark web.

German police first seized the marketplace’s online infrastructure in Dec. 2021, and worked alongside Europol and international law enforcement agencies to target “high-value targets” who sold drugs and illicit goods around the world.

SpecTor is a continuation of the same efforts that disrupted darknet marketplace Hydra in 2022 and online identity-theft site Genesis Market in 2023.

“Our message to criminals on the dark web is this: You can try to hide in the furthest reaches of the internet, but the Justice Department will find you and hold you accountable for your crimes,” Garland said in a statement.

Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms and the Internal Revenue Service’s criminal investigative team were involved. Law enforcement from Austria, Brazil, France, Germany, Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland and the United Kingdom were also involved.

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Nvidia down 30% from high as tech-led sell-off hits ‘Magnificent Seven’

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Nvidia down 30% from high as tech-led sell-off hits 'Magnificent Seven'

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang gives a keynote address at CES 2025, an annual consumer electronics trade show, in Las Vegas on Jan. 6, 2025.

Steve Marcus | Reuters

Nvidia has lost nearly a third of its value just two months after notching a fresh high.

The leading chipmaker slumped about 5% on Monday, building on last week’s losses as heavy selling continued across the tech sector. The popular artificial intelligence stock has shed about a fifth of its market cap since President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

The stock hit an intraday high of $153.13 on Jan. 7.

Tariff fears and growth concerns have rocked technology stocks, including Nvidia, over the past week, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite dropping more than 4%. The Nasdaq traded at a six-month low on Monday.

Many technology companies rely on parts and manufacturing overseas and new levies could push up prices. That has also sparked worries of a U.S. recession, which Trump did not rule out over the weekend.

Tesla led the declines among the “Magnificent Seven” names, plummeting more than 13%. The Elon Musk-backed electric vehicle company has plunged 16% over the past week and shed nearly 44% since Trump took office in January. The stock is also coming off its longest weekly losing streak in history as a public company.

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Elon Musk’s X suffers multiple outages

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Elon Musk’s X suffers multiple outages

Dado Ruvic | Reuters

Elon Musk’s social media platform X experienced several outages on Monday morning, leaving some users unable to load the site.

Nearly 40,000 users reported problems with the platform around 10 a.m. ET,  according to the analytics platform Downdetector, which gathers data from users who spot glitches and report them to the service. Around 28,000 people were experiencing issues as of 11:30 a.m. ET.

When X resumed loading for users Monday afternoon, Musk said the company had suffered a “massive cyberattack.” Musk did not provide any evidence, and CNBC could not independently verify that a cyberattack took place.

“We get attacked every day, but this was done with a lot of resources,” Musk wrote in a post. “Either a large, coordinated group and/or a country is involved.”

X did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

Musk acquired X, formerly known as Twitter, for $44 billion in 2022. The Tesla CEO slashed the company’s headcount by about 80% from 7,500 employees to 1,300 workers, and just 550 full-time engineers, by January 2023.

X has experienced several large-scale outages since Musk’s takeover. Users reported problems with the platform in December 2022 and with the site’s desktop app in July 2023, for instance.

The timing of the X outage couldn’t have been worse for NFL fans, who rely on the service for news updates. The first day of the NFL’s free agency tampering window began at 12 p.m. ET with the service down, sending fans searching for other options such as linear TV and Bluesky to get their news on player signings.

— CNBC’s Alex Sherman contributed reporting.

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Watch: Elon Musk on X subscriptions: ‘Free speech isn’t exactly free it costs a little bit’

Elon Musk on X subscriptions: 'Free speech isn't exactly free it costs a little bit'

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Bitcoin falls to November low under $80,000 on heightened recession fears

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Bitcoin falls to November low under ,000 on heightened recession fears

CFOTO | Future Publishing | Getty Images

Bitcoin dropped under the $80,000 level Monday, dragged by the continued selling pressure in the equities market.

The price of the flagship cryptocurrency was last lower by 5% at $78,714.96, its lowest level since November, according to Coin Metrics.

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Bitcoin in the past day

Shares of companies linked to the crypto space also slid. Coinbase fell roughly 14%. Robinhood lost 17%, and bitcoin proxy play Strategy, formerly known as MicroStrategy, declined 16%.

Bitcoin ETFs are coming off their fourth week in a row of outflows. They logged $867 million of outflows last week, bringing the four-week total to $4.75 billion, according to CoinShares. Continued bearishness pushed crypto prices even lower over the weekend, with bitcoin dropping sharply on Sunday evening to the $80,000 level for the first time since Feb. 28.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order to establish a U.S. bitcoin reserve and a digital asset stockpile late last week, disappointing some investors. However, macro uncertainty was the key driver of the accelerated downward move Monday, after Trump over the weekend didn’t rule out the possibility of a recession in the U.S.

Absent a crypto-specific catalyst, macro concerns are likely to continue weighing on cryptocurrency prices in the near term. This week, the market will be watching for key economic indicators, including the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) Tuesday, the consumer price index on Wednesday and the producer price index slated for Thursday.

Although investors expect cryptocurrency prices are likely to pull back even more before making a run for a new record, their positive outlook on the year driven by regulatory tailwinds is still intact.

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