The German authorities announced on Tuesday April 5 the closure of Hydra Market, the largest sales platform on the darknet. Available since 2015, the Russian-language website, accessible via the Tor network, had nearly 17 million customers getting supplies from 19,000 seller accounts.
A large-scale capture
” The servers of the largest darknet market in the world have been confiscated and 543 bitcoins with a total value of around 23 million euros have been seized “Say the Frankfurt prosecutor’s office and the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) in a press release.
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The cybercriminal platform was used mainly for the sale of drugs, pirated content, forged documents and illegal online services such as the “bitcoin bank mixer” used to launder money. The latter made the investigation more difficult by concealing digital financial transactions with cryptocurrencies, says the BKA.
Drug purchases were made in the form of advertisements similar to traditional online sales sites. Screenshot: BKA.
” It was probably the largest illegal market in the world “, highlighted The report. Hydra Market would have generated 1.23 billion euros in turnover in 2020 alone. The website operated mainly in Eastern countries including Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan.
” The platform and the criminal content were seized. Hydra Market users were surprised to discover a banner informing them of the seizure of the site by the German authorities.
The banner informs about the seizure of the cybercriminal platform in German, English and Russian. Screenshot: BKA.
Long-term investigative work to bring down Hydra Market
If the BKA was able to dismantle Hydra Market, it was thanks to a tip telling them that the site was hosted in Germany. The precise location of the accommodation took several months to be determined. A police source revealed to the BBC having obtained clues by monitoring the activities of American agents on the darknet.
The investigation started in July 2021 led to a reputable website hosting company being “bullet proof”. In English “bullet-proof”, this kind of company does not check the content of the sites it hosts and avoids giving information about its customers to the police.
At the beginning of 2021, the German authorities had already succeeded in dismantling the “DarkMarket” platform, considered at the time by investigators to be the most important cyber black market. The operation had made it possible to arrest nearly 150 people sourcing drugs or weapons on the site.
Investigators remain vigilant of an attempt to create a new Hydra Market. Their next objective has already been found: to unmask the investigators of this illegal trade.