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German police nick alleged admin of dark web gun sales site

Charge connected to 2016 Munich mass-murder weapon

German police have arrested a man they suspect of being the administrator of a dark net website. The site is said to have been used to buy a gun used in a 2016 mass murder.

The unnamed 30-year-old man was arrested on 8 June in “south west Germany”, according to Sky News.

The server used to host the site is said to have been identified and seized as well.

Nine people were killed in the July 2016 massacre and another 35 were injured. Police announced three weeks after the murders that a 31-year-old man, thought to be the dark net gun dealer who supplied the murderer, had been arrested.

The murderer was an 18-year-old German-Iranian who committed suicide immediately after the attack. He reportedly used a blank-firing Glock 17 pistol that had been converted to fire live ammunition, something that is generally illegal in most European and EU countries.

Arrests of dark net site administrators have been relatively rare since the downfall of Ross Ulbricht, the administrator of the Silk Road website, as authorities crack down on sales of illegal guns and drugs by targeting the middlemen and recipients.

Earlier this year a fentanyl dealer was caught after American postal workers became suspicious of his habit of wearing latex gloves while delivering multiple parcels. Meanwhile, black-shirted Border Force blokes Down Under nicked another alleged drug dealer in September last year, adding that they can “detect” dark net transactions. In late 2015 a “Walter Mitty type character” in Bristol admitted conspiracy to import a firearm and ammunition. ®

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