Audio Transcript

Mollie Halpern: The FBI continues to strengthen its efforts to disrupt and dismantle transnational organized criminal groups as more of them use the Darknet to perpetuate the opioid epidemic.

The FBI’s Hi-Tech Organized Crime Unit—established just more than a year ago—is seeing a new wave of organized crime that can be challenging to trace.

Unit Chief Emily Odom …

Emily Odom: The anonymity that the Internet provides allows them to seemingly operate with impunity. And so a big goal of ours is to let them know that even if you're selling less than a gram of fentanyl on the Internet, we can still find you, and we're still doing things to target you.

Halpern: In addition to using investigative tools to target online drug traffickers, agents are also reaching out to the community.

In a recent weeklong operation, agents spoke to hundreds of people.

Odom: And as we're engaging people, we provided pamphlets to try to encourage them if they're confronted with options of taking opioids to seek help.

Halpern: To learn about the dangers of opioid addiction, watch Chasing the Dragon, a documentary on fbi.gov.

With FBI, This Week, I’m Mollie Halpern of the Bureau.