Germany crashes Hydra, the oldest and largest darknet marketplace

The Hydra market fell. An impressive victory for Germany in the fight against the darknet.

The authorities in recent days have succeeded in combating crimes related to the dark web. The German Federal Police (Bundeskriminalamt), in cooperation with the US authorities, announces the closure of the Hydra Market, the world’s largest and oldest darknet marketplace that is still in operation. It is estimated to have accounted for about 80% of all cryptocurrency transactions made on the dark web, and has circulated at least $5.2 billion worth of cryptocurrencies since 2015.

Hydra market fell

This takeover includes crypto servers and wallets worth about $25 million in bitcoin. In the meantime, the US Department of Justice has accused Russian resident Dmitry Pavlov of drug trafficking and money laundering because of his operations on Hydra servers. Hydra primarily catered to users in Russian-speaking countries looking to buy or trade contraband, including drugs, hacking services, and other stolen data. The marketplace has also been involved in various money laundering operations and, in particular, cryptomixing, which aims to make the cryptocurrency more difficult to trace.

Impressive victory for Germany in the fight against the darknet

The US Treasury went even further against Hydra and Garantex, a Russian crypto exchange, adding them and over 100 crypto addresses to a special list. The Bundeskriminalamt said in a statement that the Hydra investigation has been underway with the help of the United States since last August.

This is not the first time that authorities have shut down a major dark web marketplace in this way. Some of the most impressive projects include AlphaBay, Silk Road and most recently DarkMarket. Of course, other trading platforms will soon take the place of Hydra, but in the meantime, these illegal operations can be suspended. And this big catch serves as a reminder that even the biggest players on the dark web are not immune.