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.” The authorities shut down its server infrastructure and seized over $25 million worth of bitcoin.
The “Hydra Market” is down
According to a Federal Police statement, German law enforcement “secured the server infrastructure of the world’s largest illegal Darknet market, Hydra Market, and therefore shut it down.” Authorities also confiscated 543 BTC, or approximately $25.3 million.
Today’s operation is a result of investigations conducted by the BKA and the ZIT, which at one point collaborated with their American colleagues.
The Illicit Market was a Russian-language Darknet platform accessible through the Tor network since at least 2015. The organization focused primarily on the illegal drug trade. According to German estimates, “Hydra Market” had around 17 million customers and over 19,000 registered seller accounts. In 2020, the marketplace generated over $1.3 billion in revenue.
Throughout the years, the platform has built a Bitcoin Bank Mixer – a service that obstructs digital transactions and makes investigations highly difficult. The market served mainly customers in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Moldova.
Other Russian Dark Websites Shut Down Recently
In February this year, the Russian Interior Ministry shut down four major illegal Darknet platforms, generating over $260 million in crypto revenue from the sale of stolen credit cards. These marketplaces were Ferum Shop, Trump’s Dumps, Sky-Fraud Forum, and UAS Store.
All those platforms offered stolen credit cards, while buyers could pay for the items with premium gift cards, luxury goods, or digital assets. The three most employed cryptocurrencies were Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), and Litecoin (LTC).
Of the four sites, Ferum Shop is by far the largest, accounting for $256 million in BTC from illegal proceedings. Trump’s Dumps was second, raising around $4.1 million in crypto.
Sky-Fraud forum was a popular midpoint, where criminals discussed their criminal techniques and exchanged money-laundering tips. Upon shutting it down, the Russian authorities left a message on the platform saying: “Which one of you is next?”
Subsequently, the UAS store accounted for $3 million in digital asset revenue. The site has been particularly active since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, making more than $860,000 in revenue since 2020.
