Germany Shuts Down Russian Darknet Market Hydra: Report

Germany shuts down Russian darknet market Hydra and confiscated 543 BTC worth more than $25 million as we are reading more today in our latest cryptocurrency news.

Frankfurt’s Central Office For Combating Cybercrime as well as the Federal Criminal Police Office made a joint operation against the Russian darknet market Hydra and the authorities shut down the infrastrcuture service and seized more than $25 million worth of BTC. According to the police statements, the German law enforcement agents secured the server of the Darknet market Hydra and closed it but in the meantime confiscated 543 BTC or about $25.3 million.

Today’s operation is a result of investigations conducted by the German authorities which at one point collaborated with their American colleagues. The marketplace was based in Russia and it was accessible via the Tor network since 2015. the main focus of the organization was ont raiding illegal drugs and according to German reports, the Hydra market had more than 17 million customers and 19,000 registered sellers. In 2020, the marketplace generated about $1.3 billion in revenue.

As Germany shuts down Hydra, it was evident from the reports that the platform built a BTC Bank Mixer which obstructs digital transactions and makes investigating difficult. The market served customers in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Moldova. The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs halted the illegal darknet platforms and seized more than $260 million in crypto proceeds from the sale of stolen credit cards. The marketplaces included Trump’s Dumps, Ferum Shop, UAS Store, and others.

All those platforms offered stolen credit cards where the buyers were able to pay for the items with premium gift cards, digital assets, and luxury goods. The three most employed cryptocurrencies were BTC, LTC, and ETH. Among the four sites, Ferum Shop was the biggest with $256 million in BTC from the illegal proceedings. Sky-Fraud was popular as well where criminals offered their techniques and exchanged money for tips.
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The UAS store accounted for $3 million in digital asset revenue but the site was active since the COVID pandemic started and managed to make up to $860,000 of income since 2020.

As recently reported, A darknet dealer who sold drugs for crypto will forfeit $2.3 million in Bitcoin, and just got sentenced to 8 years in prison after selling drugs for crypto on the dark web.