While the web people browse casually is growing extremely fast, there is a place where not many people dare to venture.
And that place is called the dark net, or the dark web. This part of the internet that cannot be accessed by traditional browsers and search engines, is where many cybercriminals lurk, black market traders make their money, and drug lords thrive.
Since the death of Ross Ulbricht's Silk Road marketplace, there have been a number of marketplaces that became popular.
And among the few of the most prominent, was Hydra Market.
The marketplace was a place where users can buy illegal items and services, narcotics, false identification documents, hacking tools and hacking services, money laundering services, and lots more, who would then rate the sellers on a five-star system.
This time, the site was successfully seized and shut down by German authorities, the authorities said in a statement.
After seizing the site, the authorities who then targeted the operators and administrators of Hydra, obtained an indictment against Russian resident Dmitry Olegovich Pavlov, for conspiracy to distribute illegal items, money laundering, and his connection and administration of the servers used to run Hydra Market.
It all began in late 2015, when Pavlov allegedly operated a company that administered Hydra's servers.
This "allowed the market to operate as a platform used by thousands of drug dealers and other unlawful vendors to distribute large quantities of illegal drugs and other illicit goods and services to thousands of buyers, and to launder billions of dollars derived from these unlawful transactions," according to the Department of Justice.
After the shut down, the authorities in the U.S. sanctioned the company, along with a virtual currency exchange Garantex, stripping it from its license, the U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement.
The cryptocurrency exchange that is based in Estonian exchange was used for over $100 million in virtual currency transactions associated with Hydra Market.
The U.S. is also working to identify over 100 cryptocurrency addresses with tied to the illegal marketplace.
"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," said Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen 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."
"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. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.
"We will continue to work alongside our international and interagency partners to disrupt and dismantle darknet markets, and to hold those who commit their crimes on the dark web accountable for their acts," Garland added.
Hydra Market, whose Tor users were primarily in Russian-speaking countries, accounted for what is estimated to have been 80% of all dark web's market-related cryptocurrency transactions.
Since 2015, Hydra Market has received about $5.2 billion in cryptocurrency for transactions on the site, made by the market's 17 million known customers, reaping commissions worth millions of dollars on those sales.
After the site has been seized, German Federal Criminal Police additionally seized cryptocurrency wallets containing $25 million in Bitcoin from the marketplace.
Hydra Market's primarily catered criminals in Russia and surrounding nations, and consumers from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan.
The site played its role by hiding the two parties in geo-tagged pickup locations.
Hydra Market was so huge that prosecutors in Frankfurt described the platform as the world’s biggest illegal dark web marketplace.
"The seizures carried out today were preceded by extensive investigations that have been conducted […] since August 2021 and in which several U.S. authorities were involved," the German federal police announced.
The German authorities managed to seize the site with the help of numerous U.S. agencies, including the Drug Enforcement Administration, the IRS Criminal Investigation and others that were also involved in the operation.
The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control "is closely monitoring any efforts to circumvent or violate Russia-related sanctions, including through the use of virtual currency, and is committed to using its broad enforcement authorities to act against violations and to promote compliance," the department said.
"Our actions send a message today to criminals that you cannot hide on the dark net or their forums, and you cannot hide in Russia or anywhere else in the world," U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said.