Concerned government officials in Germany confiscated bitcoin (BTC) worth US$25 million as the country tries to shut down one of the largest darknet markets in the world.
A total of 543 bitcoins were confiscated by the cybercrime unit of the Frankfurt prosecutor’s office and the Federal Criminal Police as they “guarded” Hydra Market’s site servers, according to a statement released by the federal police on Tuesday.
17M clients, 19K vendors
The statement added that the federal authorities discovered that there are 17 million clients and 19,000 vendor accounts on Hydra Market, which has the greatest turnover of any illicit marketplace in the world.
The police estimated that the darknet marketplace earned €1.23 billion ($1.35 billion) in revenue in 2020 alone.
The authorities also stated that the Russian-language darknet marketplace contained an integrated bitcoin privacy mixer, complicating further the procedure of tracing the transactions, adding that few unidentified persons are also being probed for “operating illegal trade platforms on the marketplace on a business basis.”
Hydra Market has been accessible using the Tor browser since 2015 but the website has been removed from existence.
Countries serviced by Hydra Market
Blockchain forensics organization Ciphertrace stated that the market was mostly utilized for drugs and serviced several countries like Russia and Ukraine, as well as Belarus and Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan and Armenia.
According to the authorities, their investigation started in August 2021 which included cooperation from officials in the United States.
Hydra Market, according to the cyber security periodical CPO magazine, grew by an astounding 634 percent between 2018 and 2020, accounting for 75 percent of unlawful internet transactions.
Additionally, it has attracted “high-profile hackers in the US, notably the DarkSide gang, which is responsible for the Colonial Pipeline ransomware assault.”
Hydra Market’s business boomed during the breakout of Covid-19 pandemic, as more unlawful activities went online.
Not too long ago, a German-led police sting also brought down the famed darknet marketplace DarkMarket, which had almost 500,000 members and over 2,400 merchants worldwide.