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Hydra market has operated as a darknet marketplace, which specialized in drug trafficking.
The market operated on the Russian Tor network since 2015 and accumulated over 17 million customers. In 2020 alone, the marketplace accounted for over $1 billion worth of illegal financial transactions. The app has received over $5.2 billion in total since 2015.
On Tuesday, German authorities seized the Hydra servers and $25 million worth of bitcoin. Investigations began in august of 2021 and several departments of U.S. law enforcement were involved.
Specifically, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and the IRS criminal investigation teams played the largest roles in the crackdown from the American side. According to reports the darknet marketplace had the highest turnover rate of any of the dark web marketplace platforms. The site allowed for buying and selling of stolen credit cards, as well as forged documents. It is also reported that Hydra was used to obfuscate digital transactions.
The Doj charged 30-year-old Dmitry Olegovich Pavlov, who was one of the Hydra market operators with conspiracy to commit money laundering as well as conspiracy to distribute narcotics. Both of which were heavily featured on the app, which accounted for 80+ percent of all darknet market-related cryptocurrency transactions (according to the DOJ)
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SOURCES:
Germany shuts down world's largest illegal marketplace on darknet with US help
World’s biggest darknet marketplace, Russia-linked Hydra Market, seized and shut down, DOJ says
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