The anonymous dark net suffers another blow after police from various different countries cooperated to shut down more than 400 sites, including Silk Road 2.0 and other prominent online markets for illicit items.

Police agencies from 16 European countries and the United States collaborated to bring down more than 400 dark net sites in the Tor network, leading to the arrest of 17 people in various countries, reports the BBC. Among the sites deactivated was Silk Road 2.0 on which users were able to purchase drugs openly as well as other illegal material.

Among those arrested is Blake Benthall, believed to have started Silk Road 2.0. Six British citizens were arrested in the operation, among them a 20-year-old man from Liverpool, a 19-year-old man from New Waltham, a 30 year-old-man from Cleethorpes and a man and woman, both aged 58, from Aberdovey, Wales.

According to the Associated Press, Europol's cybercrimes division helped coordinate the operation, called Onymous, from its headquarters in The Hague.

"We will go after drug dealers regardless of whether they operate in the physical or virtual world," said Troels Oerting, head of the cybercrimes unit.

Aside from shutting down Silk Road 2.0, the operation brought down other online marketplaces like Hydra, Cloud Nine, Pandora and Blue Sky. They also seized around $1 million in Bitcoins as well as $225,000 in cash, drugs, gold and silver.

Oerting said around 55 marketplaces overall were shutdown, but the operation did not manage to shut down other marketplaces, adding: "We didn't get (major sites) Agora or Evolution, because there's only so much we can do on one day."

The operation, which involved the FBI and police agencies from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Romania, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland as well as the U.K. partook in Operation Onymous, reports The Guardian.

Aside from the arrests in the U.S. and U.K., two men were arrested in Ireland along with drugs and information related to bank accounts in Switzerland, Belize and Poland.

Police managed to shut down Silk Road 2.0 and arrest Benthall after an officer infiltrated the network, rose to the position of administrator.