German Authorities Shut Down Darknet Marketplace Hydra, Seize 500 BTC

Key Insights:

• German authorities have taken down Hydra – the world’s largest darknet marketplace.
• BTC worth over $25 million has also been seized.
• At the time of the seizure, Hydra had 17 million customers and 19,000 registered vendors.

German authorities seized bitcoin worth over $25 million, shutting down the server infrastructure for the Russian darknet marketplace Hydra.

Crackdown on Hydra

The cybercrime office of the Frankfurt prosecutor’s office and federal criminal police confiscated 543 BTC on Tuesday as they ‘secured’ the site’s servers. A statement issued by Germany’s federal police claimed that the server infrastructure of the ‘world’s largest illegal Darknet marketplace ‘Hydra Market’ was successfully closed.

The confiscated bitcoins amounted to €23 million, or approximately $25.2 million, now with Germany’s Federal Crime Police Office (BKA).

Additionally, the federal police found 17 million customers and 19,000 seller accounts on the darknet marketplace. According to the statement, Hydra Market had the highest turnover among illegal marketplaces globally.

In 2020, the marketplace had around $1.35 billion in revenue, according to German authorities. The Russian-language marketplace also had a built-in bitcoin privacy mixer, which complicated tracing the transactions, thereby keeping the marketplace afloat for a long time.

Hydra’s Expansive Business

The Hydra marketplace began operations in December 2015 and focused on the illegal narcotics trade. It also facilitated sales of false identification documents, hacking tools and services, and money laundering services for bitcoin.

Since 2015, the marketplace has received about $5.2 billion in cryptocurrency for transactions on the site, reaping commissions worth millions of dollars on those sales, according to information revealed by the US Department of Justice.

Hydra became the top Russian-language darknet marketplace following the closure of the Russian Anonymous Marketplace (RAMP) in 2017. In a statement by the DOJ, Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco said,

“The Department of Justice will not allow darknet markets and cryptocurrency to be a safe haven for money laundering and the sale of hacking tools and services.”

As of now, Hydra’s homepage has been replaced with a banner announcing its seizure.