At the start of the month, the Düsseldorf Police in Germany seized ‘Crimemarket,’ a German-speaking marketplace offering drugs and cybercrime services, counting 180,000 users, and arrested six people, including one of the leading operators. The investigation targeted the operators and administrators of Hydra, according to German authorities. Among other things, authorities said the market was being used for criminal transactions, money laundering and abundant sales of illegal narcotics. German authorities took down the world’s largest illegal marketplace on the darknet with the help of U.S. law enforcement agencies, they said. Archetyp Market operated as a drug marketplace for over five years, amassing more than 600,000 users worldwide with a total transaction volume of at least €250 million. With over 17,000 listings, it is one of the few darknet markets that allowed the sale of fentanyl and other highly potent synthetic opioids, contributing to the growing threat posed by these substances in Europe and beyond.
- However, BKA’s official announcement today about the seizure confirmed that it was a law enforcement operation.
- Usually, stolen funds are moved through either cryptocurrency exchanges or via bank transactions by money mules who give the cybercrime operators a way to cash out their stolen funds without being directly tied to the illegal acts.
- The police searched two residential properties with a ZCB public prosecutor and seized several items containing evidence.
- Through thorough analysis, the United States Postal Inspection Service was able to “de-mix” the flow of transactions, to eventually ascertain that the money from Wallets 1 and 2 ultimately paid FROST’s account at the Product Services Company.
- The operation, conducted in collaboration with law enforcement agencies from Germany, Lithuania, and the U.S., took place on March 20, 2024, following an extensive investigation that commenced in October 2022.
- Mixing services allowed customers, for a fee, to send bitcoin to designated recipients in a manner that was designed to conceal the source or owner of the bitcoin.
German Police On A Roll
So far, one arrest has been confirmed, that of Alan Bill, aka “Vend0r” or “KingdomOfficial,” a Slovakian who allegedly held an administrator role on the darknet platform and acted as a moderator for the market on Reddit. According to a BKA press release, the marketplace hosted 42,000 items for sale, 3,600 of which were from Germany. The authorities mention that Kingdom Market had tens of thousands of customer accounts and several hundred registered sellers. Over its five years of activity, the marketplace amassed over 612,000 users with a total transaction volume of over €250 million (approximately $289 million) in Monero cryptocurrency transactions. The operation comes several months after German police took down a notorious dark web marketplace known as Kingdom Market.
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The primary operator behind DarkMarket, a website that prosecutors have described as “probably the largest illegal marketplace on the Darknet”, has been arrested in Germany. The announcement has marked the end of a tumultuous period for Wall Street Market, which appeared to be in meltdown over recent weeks after an administrator leaked key passwords for the site. Researchers said this followed extortion attempts by an owner, who allegedly threatened to expose vendors on the platform if they didn’t hand over significant amounts of virtual currency. The marketplaces, Wall Street Market and Valhalla (Silkkitie), were dismantled this week by law enforcement from Germany, the U.S., Finland and France, in collaboration with Europol. The websites were accessible using the Tor Browser, a gateway to the so-called dark web. The agency said further investigations against criminal sellers and users of the platform are presently ongoing.
It took federal authorities five years to identify the alleged administrator of DiDW’s third version. It is worth noting that the person responsible for the shooting spree in Munich purchased the weapon and ammunition from the platform. A message sent by the German authorities using the market’s official PGP key to registered members initially raised suspicion in the community, with many calling out the operators for exit scamming.
In 2021, Hydra accounted for an estimated 80% of all darknet market-related cryptocurrency transactions, and since 2015, the marketplace has received approximately $5.2 billion in cryptocurrency. Darknet markets are oftentimes not limited by physical borders between countries, though some make the ecosystem less sustainable with their laws. These sites will come and go, but the void will always be filled by up-and-coming sites because the demand for these substances will never go away. In this section, we will talk about the top five darknet markets that hold operations in Germany across major cities like Hamburg, Berlin, etc. In Europe, Germany is among the top three biggest markets for drugs, next to the UK and the Netherlands, and they have a lot of darknet markets operating in the country. This is the not the first time German authorities have successfully busted the operator of an illegal online platform or service.
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The laundering rings tend to provide the last mile of transactions for ransomware and cybercrime outfits. Usually, stolen funds are moved through either cryptocurrency exchanges or via bank transactions by money mules who give the cybercrime operators a way to cash out their stolen funds without being directly tied to the illegal acts. “Among other things, there is a suspicion of the commercial operation of criminal trading platforms on the Internet, the commercial procurement or granting of an opportunity for the unauthorized purchase or the unauthorized sale of narcotics and commercial money laundering.”
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Department of Justice announced an indictment of Russian resident Dmitry Olegovich Pavlov, 30, who allegedly operated the servers used to run the Russian-language Hydra. He was charged with conspiring to distribute narcotics and conspiring to commit money laundering. Wallet 1, by the way, handled thousands of bitcoins during its use in association with another darknet marketplace, German Plaza Market — which the three charged today also allegedly ran and shut down via an exit scam. This platform served as one of the main facilitators of drug trafficking in the underground cybercrime world. The police searched two residential properties with a ZCB public prosecutor and seized several items containing evidence.
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DarkMarket’s demise involved a months-long international law enforcement operation, which saw German investigators collaborating with US, Australian, British, Danish, Swiss, Ukrainian and Moldovan authorities. The FBI, DEA narcotics and IRS from the US, along with police forces from the other countries involved all played a “coordinating role”, according to investigators. DarkMarket, which had nearly 500,000 users and more than 2,400 vendors, allowed anyone with a Tor browser and some cryptocurrency to buy and sell drugs, forged money, forged or stolen credit cards, anonymous SIM cards and malware. The site had processed more than 320,000 transactions, with some $170 million USD worth of Bitcoin and Monero cryptocurrencies having been exchanged. Police announced Friday that two of the highest-selling suppliers of drugs to Wall Street Market—which was the world’s second largest illegal online marketplace—were detained in the U.S. In recent months, German authorities have also taken down Kingdom Market and Crimemarket, both of which boasted of thousands of users and offered a wide array of money laundering and cybercrime services.
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According to the European Medicines Agency (EMCDDA), Cannozon was responsible for transactions totaling more than $5.9 million between January and March of 2020 alone. These statistics do not indicate that people were using more cannabis during that time period, as some experts are quick to point out; rather, they indicate that dealers were stocking up for expected supply problems. It used to be the case that discussions on stealth and packaging were available to all participants on market forums; however, many modern market forums require a vendor account to gain access to these topics. Both stealth and packaging are essential aspects of delivery, and they frequently have an effect on how customers rate a vendor. The term “stealth” refers to the method by which the product is disguised to look like a genuine delivery item, particularly with regard to x-ray machines used by the postal service. Some dealers will send drugs or contraband concealed within DVD cases, the battery compartments of torches, or even the spines of books in an effort to conceal them.
Founded in 2021, Nemesis Market is estimated to have had more than 150,000 user accounts and 1,100 seller accounts from all over the world prior to its shutdown. In 2017, soon after that incident, the website was shut down by law enforcement, and its operator was arrested and sentenced to seven years in prison. Officers also found 850kg of drugs, including 43kg of MDMA and 10kg of LSD and ecstasy pills, and 117 firearms.
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“It takes time and a lot of dedicated effort, but these criminals are finding it increasingly difficult to avoid the light being shone into dark corners of the web.” The move gives law enforcement two more “wins” when it comes to promoting anti-cybercrime efforts. The move follows the headline-grabbing shuttering of AlphaBay and Hansa Market in July 2017 and, of course, the infamous takedown of the Silk Road platform in 2013.
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Even though relatively small in comparison to the overall retail market for drugs, the sale of pharmaceuticals in these markets is significant and appears to be growing. People from all walks of life partake in recreational drugs, whether it be to relax or because they want to chase a high. With laws cracking down harder and harder on the selling and distribution of these substances, people are turning more and more to the darknet to get their fix. More than 20 servers in Moldova and Ukraine were also seized, with police hoping to acquire further information about other participants in the marketplace. A judge ordered the Australian man to be held in custody pending possible charges, but at the time of writing he had not given any information to investigators.
However, the site was also used for selling illegal items such as weapons and drugs, using an escrow system for payments to protect members from fraudulent listings. The CyberBunker hosting service was based in former North Atlantic Treaty Organization bunkers in Holland and then Germany, helping controversial sites avoid police legal enforcement from military-style basements. CyberBunker has housed servers for the Pirate Bay, WikiLeaks and a range of dark net markets as a “bulletproof hosting” service, only to become the subject of fixation for police and in the global media. The law enforcement action originated in a larger investigation into the internet hosting provider known as CyberBunker, a notorious service that scammers for a generation have used to operate with little fear of detection. “The Hydra Market was probably the illegal marketplace with the highest turnover worldwide,” with sales amounting to at least 1.23 billion euros in 2020 alone, the federal police statement said.
