My understanding (and really, I was just a curious observer occasionally in irc at the time) is that the anons would submit the information anonymously, then the FBI would pass it on to LEAs in the appropriate countries or use the anonymous tip to get a search warrant in the US. I doubt anything grabbed by Anon would ever be used directly in court.

As for the timing, you may well be right. I simply remember Freedom Hosting being a target back in the day. While this case may not have anything to do with Op Darknet, it did ring some bells for me and arouse my suspicions of Op Darknet in general.