Frankfurt’s Central Office for Combating Cybercrime (ZIT) and the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) conducted a joint operation against the Russian darknet marketplace “Hydra Market”. Authorities shut down its server infrastructure and confiscated more than $25 million worth of bitcoin.
The ‘Hydra Market’ Is Down
According to a federal police statement, German law enforcement agents “secured the server infrastructure of Hydra Markets, the world’s largest illegal darknet marketplace, and thereby closed it down.” The authorities also confiscated 543 BTC, equivalent to approximately $25.3 million.
Today’s operation is the result of an investigation by BKA and ZIT, which at one time collaborated with their American allies.
Illegal Marketplace was a Russian-language darknet platform that had been accessible through the Tor network since at least 2015. The main focus of the organization was on the illegal drug trade. According to German estimates, the “Hydra Market” had about 17 million customers and over 19,000 registered seller accounts. In 2020, the marketplace generated more than $1.3 billion in revenue.
Throughout the years, the platform has built a bitcoin bank mixer – a service that hinders digital transactions and makes investigations exceedingly difficult. The market mainly served customers in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Moldova.
Other Russian dark web sites recently shut down
In February this year, the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs blocked four major illegal darknet platforms, generating over $260 million in crypto proceeds from the sale of stolen credit cards. Those marketplaces were Ferrum Shop, Trump Dump, Sky-Fraud Forum and the U.S. Store.
All of those platforms offered stolen credit cards, while shoppers could pay for premium gift cards, luxury goods or items with digital assets. The three most commonly employed cryptocurrencies were Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), and Litecoin (LTC).
Of the four sites, Ferrum Shop is by far the largest, accounting for $256 million in BTC from illegal proceedings. Trump’s dump was in second place with about $4.1 million in crypto.
The Sky-Fraud Forum was a popular midpoint, where criminals discussed their criminal techniques and exchanged money-laundering tips. Upon closing it, Russian officials left a message on the stage: “Which one of you is ahead?”
Subsequently, the U.S. store contributed $3 million in digital asset revenue. The site has been particularly active since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, generating over $860,000 of its income since 2020.
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