Past operations against cybercrime markets suggest that even though Nemesis’s infrastructure was shut down, the criminals might retain the ability to restart their operations somewhere else. “The global threat of cybercrime and ransomware that originates in Russia, and the ability of criminal leaders to operate there with impunity, is deeply concerning to the United States,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in the statement. “Our actions send a message today to criminals that you cannot hide on the darknet or their forums, and you cannot hide in Russia or anywhere else in the world.” 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. “The operators of the Darknet website are particularly suspected of commercially operating criminal trading platforms on the Internet and of committing crimes against the Narcotics Act,” Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) said in a press release. It offered more than 42,000 items for sale, including around 3,600 products from Germany.
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The term “packaging” refers to the manner in which the drug is packaged in order to evade detection by sniffer dogs or other methods of locating odors and traces. As a deterrent for dishonest users, the operator of the website keeps the money in a secure location. The actual shipping of the goods through the postal system is the only link in the chain that could potentially be compromised–though that is changing of late. The researcher named at least two markets that are already vying to take the “top spot.”
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Police announced Friday that two of the highest-selling suppliers of drugs to Wall Street Market—which was the world’s second largest illegal online marketplace—were detained in the U.S. In recent months, German authorities have also taken down Kingdom Market and Crimemarket, both of which boasted of thousands of users and offered a wide array of money laundering and cybercrime services. “Together with our German law enforcement partners, we have seized the infrastructure of the world’s largest darknet market, but our work is far from over,” U.S.
- The website launched in 2015 selling drugs, hacked materials, forged documents and illegal digital services such as Bitcoin-mixing – which cyber-criminals use to launder stolen or extorted digital coins.
- This included the likes of weapons, fentanyl and images of child abuse – unfortunately, the kind of things often found on the marketplaces.
- Hydra vendors also offered a robust array of money laundering and so-called “cash-out” services, which allowed Hydra users to convert their bitcoin (BTC) into a variety of forms of currency supported by Hydra’s wide array of vendors.
- In 2019, police stormed a bunker hosting a number of illegal darknet platforms in the quiet German town of Traben-Trarbach, near the Luxembourgian border.
- The BKA also said 20 additional properties were searched, mainly targeting Archtetyp moderators and vendors.
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Beyond arrests and seizures of servers, it’s important for governments to warn people about the dangers of buying illegal drugs online, said FBI Deputy Director Paul M. Abbate. 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. For as long as the law curtails a substance that the people really want, the darknet markets will be there to facilitate the delivery of these things.
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The platform had already gone offline in March 2022, with 16,000 registered users, 28,000 posts, and 72 high-volume sellers of prohibited goods, including weapons and drugs. BKA has not mentioned if the server administrators or any of the platform’s core operators were identified or arrested during the action. And as law enforcement gained access to the vendors’ extensive buyer lists during the operation, thousands of customers around the world are also at risk of prosecution.
The seizure of the Hydra servers and cryptocurrency wallets containing $25 million worth of bitcoin was made this morning in Germany by the German Federal Criminal Police (the Bundeskriminalamt), in coordination with U.S. law enforcement. German law enforcement has announced the disruption of a dark web platform called Kingdom Market that specialized in the sales of narcotics and malware to “tens of thousands of users.” Europol said the operation seized more than €50.8 million ($53.4 million) in cash and virtual currencies, as well as 850kg of drugs — including over 258 kg of amphetamines, 43kg of cocaine, 43kg of MDMA and over 10 kg of LSD and ecstasy pills — alongside 117 firearms. Users across multiple forums had previously expressed concerns about being victims of an exit scam, where marketplace administrators simply disappear with customers’ funds.
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The development comes a month after another coordinated law enforcement operation took down the LockBit ransomware group, taking control of the outfit’s servers and arresting three affiliates from Poland and Ukraine. The operation, conducted in collaboration with law enforcement agencies from Germany, Lithuania, and the U.S., took place on March 20, 2024, following an extensive investigation that commenced in October 2022. The DOJ also charged one of Hydra Market’s alleged operators with conspiracy to distribute narcotics and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Identifying the operators of darknet platforms that have gone defunct for several years isn’t uncommon, as cybercrime investigators work on these cases for extended periods. In 2018, two new versions of the platform appeared on the dark web, using the motto “No control, everything allowed,” implying the new operators no longer cared about masking illegal activities on the site.
Many researchers, however, doubted this claim, saying the hackers were able to make it appear back online because the website where they listed victims was run as an onion service, a specialized type of anonymous website that can only be accessed over the Tor network. It’s reported that from when it was constructed in May 2019 until it was shuttered in early 2021, users exchanged about €140 million worth of cryptocurrency. Estonian authorities coordinated with U.S. agencies as part of the sanctions process, Treasury said. • The Ukraine invasion caused upheaval in Eastern Europe’s cybercrime underground, as hackers and crooks adjusted their priorities and allegiances, particularly after the leak of thousands of internal documents from the Conti group.
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“They are being picked off one by one,” tweeted Alan Woodward, a cybersecurity researcher at Britain’s University of Surrey. “It takes time and a lot of dedicated effort, but these criminals are finding it increasingly difficult to avoid the light being shone into dark corners of the web.” The move gives law enforcement two more “wins” when it comes to promoting anti-cybercrime efforts. The move follows the headline-grabbing shuttering of AlphaBay and Hansa Market in July 2017 and, of course, the infamous takedown of the Silk Road platform in 2013.
As an active administrator in hosting Hydra’s servers, Pavlov allegedly conspired with the other operators of Hydra to further the site’s success by providing the critical infrastructure that allowed Hydra to operate and thrive in a competitive darknet market environment. In doing so, Pavlov is alleged to have facilitated Hydra’s activities and allowed Hydra to reap commissions worth millions of dollars generated from the illicit sales conducted through the site. German authorities have announced the takedown of an illicit underground marketplace called Nemesis Market that peddled narcotics, stolen data, and various cybercrime services. On April 16, vendors realized they could not collect the virtual funds that had been placed in escrow by their customers, which prompted German authorities to execute a series of arrest and search warrants. The three defendants allegedly created WSM, maintained the website, and operated the marketplace to ensure that buyers could access vendor pages and that financial transactions were properly processed.
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“The administrators of Hydra reportedly claim that the market is undergoing ‘technical works’ and have not acknowledged the takedown,” the company said. Authorities seized “server infrastructure” within Germany and 543 bitcoins worth more than $25 million total as of Tuesday morning’s exchange rate, according to a news release from the BKA agency. The arrested individual is said to be administering the marketplace since November 2018. He is accused of operating a criminal trading forum, which as per Section 127 of the Criminal Code, involves a sentence of 1 to 10 years. Reportedly, the site used an escrow system to make payments and ensure its members were protected from fraudulent listings.
