Germany closes Russian Hydra darknet market, confiscating бітко 25 million in bitcoin

German authorities have closed one of the world's largest darknet markets, Hydra Market. This is a marketplace with a turnover of at least 2 2 billion, where you could buy any illegal goods. When the main Russian darknet market was closed, Germany confiscated.25 million in bitcoin (BTC), CoinDesk reports.

As the Federal Police said on April 5, the Frankfurt prosecutor's office and the federal criminal police confiscated 543 BTC that "protected" the site's servers.

German police also found 17 million customers and 19 thousand merchant accounts.

According to the report, Hydra Market probably had the highest turnover among illegal markets in the world. In 2020, the market's revenue was 1.23 billion euros (. 1.35 billion). Overall, it has been running since 2015 and was available via the Tor Browser. The site has now been removed from the internet.

According to Ciphertrace, the market was mainly used for drug sales and served Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Moldova.

The police also found out that the Russian-speaking market had a built-in bitcoin privacy mixer, which made it difficult to track transactions.

Now it became known that the Hydra servers, which were visible only on the darknet, were physically located in Frankfurt, in data centers near Hetzner.

According to the German police, the investigation began in August 2021, and the US authorities were also involved in it. There is a possibility that Hydra is the business of someone from the FSB of the Russian Federation.