Darknet Hydra Market site seized and shut down, DOJ says
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After Ahmaud, a young Black male, was murdered by federal hate crime defendants, U.S. attorney general Merrick Garland spoke to the media at Justice Department. This occurred in Washington, DC, U.S.A, 22 February 2022.
Nicholas Kamm | Reuters
Hydra Market was the oldest and largest “darknet” marketplace for illegal goods and services in the world. It was taken by German authorities and closed down Tuesday. U.S. Department of Justice said.
Justice also indicted one Hydra Market alleged operator with conspiracy to distribute drugs and money laundering.
According to the DOJ, German Federal Criminal Police also confiscated cryptocurrency wallets that contained $25 Million in Bitcoin.
The darknet or “dark web” is the collection of websitesHidden from search engines and web browsers. Users can only access this information with browsers that hide their identities.
Hydra Market was used primarily by Russian-speaking users last year and accounted for 80% of darknet-related transactions cryptocurrency transactionsJustice.
HydraMarket has earned millions in commissions on these transactions since 2015, according to the DOJ.
Hydra Market enabled vendors of a wide range of drugs — including heroin, other opioids, cocaine, methamphetamine, and LSD — to connect with customers of those narcotics, who could rate sellers on a five-star system, according to U.S. prosecutors.
It also allowed the sales of fraudulent identification documents, hackers tools, and other services. money laundering services for bitcoin.
Justice stated that it had indicted Dmitry Olegovich Pavlov (a 30-year-old Russian resident) for conspiracy to distribute and money laundering in connection to the operation and administration servers running Hydra.
Pavlov is alleged to have owned a company that managed Hyrdra’s servers starting in 2015 and “allowing the market operation to be used as a platform by thousands of drugs dealers and other illegal vendors to distribute large quantities illicit drugs and other products and services, to thousands of buyers and to launder billions derived from these illegal transactions,” according the DOJ.
U.S. Attorney general Merrick Garland released a statement saying that “Together, with our German law enforcement partner, we have seized the infrastructure of world’s biggest darknet market,”
Garland stated, “We will work with our interagency international partners to disrupt the darknet market and hold those involved in darknet crimes accountable for their actions.”
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