The Federal Criminal Police of Germany, after a long investigation, blocked the largest Russian-language online service Hyrda Market, which existed on the Darknet network. At the same time, 543 bitcoins worth 23 million euros were seized, the Federal Criminal Affairs Office (BKA) at the Federal Prosecutor’s Office of Frankfurt am Main reported on April 5.
The blocking of the resource was preceded by large-scale investigations conducted by BKA since August 2021 in cooperation with the US authorities.
The investigation is still underway against unknown operators and administrators of the resource, who are suspected of drug trafficking, forged documents and illegally obtained information. The site is currently unavailable.
“The platform is suspected of operating criminal trading platforms on the Internet on a commercial basis, providing an opportunity for unauthorized acquisition or unauthorized delivery of drugs, as well as money laundering on a commercial basis,” the report says.
It is noted that since 2015, 17 million customers and 19 thousand sellers have registered on the server, and as of 2020, operations worth 1.23 billion euros were carried out on the site. Access to the service was possible through a special browser — Tor. According to experts, such financial turnovers indicate that Hyrda Market was the largest illegal market network in the world by volume.
Earlier it was reported that a double agent acting as an FBI informant organized contract killings on the Darknet. The payment for the performance of the “work” was carried out in cryptocurrency.
Last October, the largest drain of personal data of Facebook users took place. The names, email addresses, phone numbers, location and other information of 1.5 billion users that were put up for sale appeared on the Darknet.