In the wake of Hydra market’s collapse in 2022, new markets quickly swooped in to try and replace it. Is an English and Russian language marketplace that seems to have captured many of Hydra’s former vendors and consumers. In the first arc of the anime series Lupin the 3rd Part V, Lupin III steals digital currency from the “Marco Polo” darknet market. Department of Justice announced it had seized cryptocurrency worth an estimated $112 million linked to pig butchering. The value of these markets was estimated by the UNODC in September of 2018 to stand at $14 million (£11 million) to $25 million (£20 million) per month – a tiny fraction of overall illicit drug sales.
BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Police across Europe have dismantled a dark web drug marketplace known as ‘Archetyp Market’, the pan-European Europol police body said on Monday, which added that U.S. authorities had also assisted them in the operation. The data from this week’s seizures will be the basis for further investigations against sellers and users who used the platform, German authorities said. The seizure is the result of parallel investigations and close coordination between German, American and Lithuanian law enforcement authorities, including the FBI, DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) and IRS-CI (Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation) since October 2022. Before taking down CrimeMarket, German authorities worked alongside international agencies to bust the prolific LockBit ransomware gang. After taking down LockBit’s website, the criminals regrouped to launch a series of devastating attacks on critical infrastructure in various countries around the world, including the US, Canada, and Britain. Platform shutdowns can disrupt logistics, lead to arrests and seize goods, but they do not break apart the dark web’s recovery architecture.
Darknet And Illegal Market Places
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. In addition to the law enforcement actions taking down Hydra’s illegal marketplace, the U.S. sanctioned the company, along with a virtual currency exchange based in Estonia, the U.S. Darknet markets, also known as “cryptomarkets,” are online marketplaces that operate on the dark web, a part of the internet that is not indexed by search engines and is only accessible through specialized software like the Tor browser. The darknet is designed to provide its users with the highest possible degree of anonymity. As a result of their secretive and covert behaviour, users of market places and forums in the darknet do not only utilise anonymisation services.
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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. They shut down previous record-setters like AlphaBay, Silk Road and most recently DarkMarket. We wouldn’t count on the seizure preventing other dark web shops from taking Hydra’s place, then. It could disrupt operations for a while, though, and might serve as a reminder that even the larger digital black markets can fold with little warning. Some are looking for illegal stuff they can’t buy elsewhere, like drugs or counterfeit documents. The platform was active on the darknet, a part of the internet accessible only through specialized tools that provide more anonymity.
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Exit scams are common among large darknet marketplaces, which typically hold money in escrow while a vendor delivers illicit goods. The dismantling of Archetyp Market, one of the longest-running and largest dark web drug marketplaces, highlights international law enforcement’s coordinated efforts to combat the global illegal drug trade and address the distribution of dangerous substances such as fentanyl. The purpose of these marketplaces on the Tor network is to provide users and providers of darknet services with anonymity and security, respectively. Transactions are carried out with the help of a cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin and dark wallets, which protect both the buyer and the seller. The Dark Web—a hidden part of the internet accessible only through specialized software like Tor—has become increasingly significant as we enter 2025. Often portrayed as the internet’s shadowy underbelly, the Dark Web hosts marketplaces offering everything from privacy tools and digital currencies to more questionable, or outright illegal, products and services.
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Articles categorized as “left” provide more commentary on societal impacts, such as links between the marketplace and organized crime in Sweden, or focus on harm caused by synthetic opioids. In contrast, “right” sources tend to emphasize law enforcement success and U.S.-European cooperation, highlighting the logistics of the operation rather than the social aftermath. Authorities from multiple countries, including Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the United States, worked together to investigate and take down a major online criminal marketplace, demonstrating the need for cross-border efforts to combat cyber-enabled crime. The Revolution Market is an extremely simple marketplace that possesses all the features necessary for a fundamental dark-net market.
Axis Intelligence provides dark web surveillance solutions that help businesses identify leaked credentials, fraud attempts, and malware risks before they escalate. It maintains a very strict level of user verification and integration with an official Telegram account to provide real-time updates to users. The Abacus Market links to the new dark web marketplace sections and took over much of the vacuum left by the AlphaBay takedown. For instance, cybercriminals can buy credit card details with a $5,000 balance for just $110. As of 2020, nearly 57% of the dark web was estimated to contain illegal content, including violence and extremist platforms. “I do not recall any case where this huge amount of criminal-infrastructure data was gathered,” an officer told the New Yorker.
Crimenetwork enabled buyers and sellers to trade stolen data, drugs, forged documents and other illegal goods and services, the BKA said. It had been operating since 2012 and built up a following of over 100,000 users and more than 100 sellers, mainly from German-speaking countries. Hydra was the illegal marketplace with the highest turnover worldwide, German authorities said. It also offered a service for obfuscating digital transactions, complicating crypto investigations for law enforcement agencies.
HSI is a worldwide law enforcement leader in Darknet and other cyber-related criminal investigations. The DHS Cyber Crimes Center (C3) combats cybercrime, online child sexual exploitation, and criminal exploitation of the internet with state-of-the-art forensic technology. The Center investigates large-scale cybercrime threats and provides expertise on cybercrime investigations to the field.
- The market’s takedown came after years of effort from Germany, Netherlands, Romania, Spain, Sweden and the United States.
- It is filled with tweets and retweets focusing on anti-Islam themes and criticism of the religion, while sharing congratulatory notes to Muslims who left the faith.
- Europol’s Deputy Executive Director of Operations, Jean-Philippe Lecouffe, called the takedown a decisive strike against a platform that had become a critical node in the global supply chain for some of the world’s most dangerous substances.
- “On Thursday, February 29, 2024, a total of 102 search warrants were executed nationwide at the same time in the evening,” a police notice read.
Building on the successes of prior years’ operations, Operation RapTOR furthered global efforts to dismantle darknet marketplaces, resulting in the seizure of darknet infrastructure from Nemesis, Tor2Door, Bohemia, and Kingdom Markets. These actions provided investigators across the globe with invaluable leads and evidence, strengthening the ongoing fight against cybercrime and illicit activities on the darknet. Activities on dark-web marketplaces are closely monitored by international law enforcement agencies. Purchasing or selling illegal goods—such as controlled substances, counterfeit documents, or stolen data—can result in significant legal penalties, including fines, criminal charges, and imprisonment. Even users who access these platforms without intent to buy illegal items risk suspicion or investigation. Transactions on Hydra were conducted in cryptocurrency and Hydra’s operators charged a commission for every transaction conducted on Hydra.
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Archetyp Market attracted more than 600,000 users with over 17,000 listings facilitating high volumes of illicit drug sales, including fentanyl, cocaine, MDMA, amphetamines and synthetic opioids. Europol compared the platform’s endurance, scale and reputation to other notorious and now-defunct drug marketplaces such as Dream Market and Silk Road. The Archetyp Market takedown comes at a time of continued growth and transformation in the digital drug trade. According to TRM Labs, cryptocurrency-enabled online drug sales grew by more than 19% from 2023 to 2024, reaching nearly USD 2.4 billion in total volume. At the same time, 2024 saw a 42% decline in the number of new darknet marketplaces launched year over year — a signal that while the market is consolidating, it is also becoming more sophisticated.
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Sellers often need to pay a deposit to prove they’re serious, and they build their reputation through positive reviews. These sites cater to cybercriminals seeking valuable data, such as credit card numbers, login credentials, and personal information. In total, law enforcement officers seized 47 smartphones, 45 computers, narcotics, and assets worth €7.8 million from all suspects during Operation Deep Sentinel. One Archetyp Market moderator and six of the marketplace’s highest vendors were also arrested in Germany and Sweden.
- German federal police (the Bundeskriminalamt) working with US law enforcement have seized Hydra Market, billed as the world’s largest and longest-serving dark web marketplace.
- 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.
- An intuitive, user-friendly interface is crucial, especially given the complex nature of dark-web interactions.
- Authorities seized assets valued at 7.8 million euros, including cryptocurrency and luxury goods, and deployed around 300 officers across multiple countries during the operation.
It offers counterfeit documents, financial fraud tools, hacking and malware services. The investigators identified the suspects (many behind thousands of sales on illicit online marketplaces) using intelligence collected following takedowns of multiple dark web markets, including Nemesis, Bohemia, Tor2Door, and Kingdom Market. The wares it offered included drugs, fraudulently obtained data and goods, and cybercrime services including ransomware, phishing and distributed denial-of-service, or DDoS, attacks. In December of last year, German authorities and law enforcement from the US, Ukraine, Moldova and Switzerland seized the infamous Kingdom Market cybercrime marketplace in a joint operation. This is only the latest in a string of hits by German authorities against underground web operators.
And then there’s malware—click the wrong link or download the wrong file, and your device could get infected. One of the most common is the exit scam, where a marketplace suddenly disappears and takes everyone’s money with it. In 2019, there were approximately 8,400 active sites on the dark web, selling thousands of products and services daily.
Furthermore, deterring drug users from the darknet could lead to them buying drugs on the streets, which could be more dangerous from a health perspective. Drugs on the darknet have a better reputation regarding cleanliness (Bancroft, 2017; Munksgaard et al., 2022), and some form of harm reduction also derives from the communities formed around darknet markets (Aldridge et al., 2018; Szigeti et al., 2023). White House Market is another popular darknet market, known for its strict security measures. It only accepts Monero as a payment method, ensuring complete anonymity for its users. White House Market also has a built-in PGP encryption system, which means that all communications between buyers and vendors are encrypted, ensuring maximum privacy. The marketplace was offline last week, when Dread and its sister services were under heavy DDoS and inaccessible.
