The German authorities have confiscated the servers of Hydra Market, the most well-known Russian darknet network for drug sales and money laundering.
The authorities were also able to seize 543 bitcoins worth a little more than $25 million from the earnings of Hydra.
The money seized reflects the scale of the Hydra market, which had over 19,000 registered vendor accounts serving at least 17 million clients worldwide.
Hydra Market had a turnover of $1.35 billion in 2020, according to the Central Office for Combating Cybercrime (ZIT) and Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), making it the world's largest darknet market.
Elliptic, a blockchain analytics firm, confirmed the authorities' confiscation of digital assets today, charting the action as 88 transactions totalling 543.3 bitcoin.
Hydra also provided stolen databases, falsified documents, and hacking for hire services, in addition to the core focus of narcotics and money laundering.
An investigation into a shady area
The BKA, operating on behalf of the Attorney General's Office in Frankfurt am Main, confiscated the market's infrastructure following a coordinated international law enforcement action, according to Hydra's homepage.
This move was made possible following a lengthy examination of the platform's previously unknown operators and administrators.
Hydra Market had a Bitcoin Bank Mixer, which disguised all bitcoin transactions done on the platform, making it difficult for law enforcement organisations to track money gained through illicit activity, according to the BKA announcement.
According to a BKA spokesperson, no arrests have been made in this operation, and they are unable to give any other information on the evaluation of the confiscated infrastructure owing to ongoing investigations.
