The Versus Project is being developed for and by the community, and the buyers are being given as many opportunities as possible to participate in the expansion of the market. PGP support and two-factor authentication are both available on the market as an additional layer of security. Only trusted vendors may make use of the Early Finalization or the 50 percent FE option. Support for Escrow can be discovered on the market, in addition to 2/3 Multisig. Customers can leave feedback for any purchases they make, allowing other users to more accurately assess whether or not a specific product is worth their money. Heineken Express is a drug-focused delivery service provider.
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During this time they were able to gather information on customers and the functioning of the darknet. Right after the pair were arrested last month, authorites secretly took control of the site and turned it into a honeypot trap. A federal district court in Nevada sentenced Eduardo “Eddie” Lopez of Las Vegas to 40 months in custody and $550,000 in criminal fines. The Department thanks its law enforcement colleagues at the German Federal Criminal Police (the Bundeskriminalamt), the German Public Prosecutor’s Office in Frankfurt, the Dutch National Police (Politie), the Netherlands National Prosecutor’s Office, Federal Police of Brazil (Policia Federal), Europol and Eurojust.
Shortly after, police in Germany and the U.S. charged the men with narcotics and money laundering. Like others, WSM sold tons of drugs, fake goods and hacking software. Launched in 2013, Dream Market was a top tier marketplace especially after AlphaBay’s fall. When AlphaBay went offline on July 4, many fleeing users migrated to Hansa which was by then run covertly by police. By mid July, authorities seized AlphaBay’s servers in Thailand and elsewhere and frozen millions in cryptocurrency. It sold deadly narcotics fentanyl, heroin, stolen IDs, malware tools, firearms and more.
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“Treasury, in partnership with U.S. law enforcement, will use all available tools to dismantle these darknet marketplaces and hold accountable the individuals who oversee them.” Nemesis had over 30,000 active users and 1,000 vendors and facilitated the sale of nearly $30 million worth of drugs around the world between 2021 and 2024, including to the United States. Following the 2022 shutdown of Hydra Market, TRM identified the emergence of new Russian-language darknet markets that by 2024 accounted for more than 97% of global darknet drug revenues. From June 11 to 13, 2025, law enforcement authorities in Germany, the Netherlands, Romania, Spain, Sweden, and the United States executed a series of synchronized actions targeting the platform’s administrator, moderators, top vendors, and core infrastructure.
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- Police said they’d seized the Crimemarket domain address and are currently studying seized data, documents and evidence, which will be making some users of the marketplace somewhat nervous.
- The court record also shows that Ta communicated with Srinivasan about drug orders, obtained fentanyl-laced pills and methamphetamine from sources of supply, stored those drugs in his residence, and mailed out packages with drugs to customers who had ordered them from Srinivasan on the “redlightlabs” account.
- McDonald purchased bulk quantities of fentanyl and cocaine and then directed others to complete hundreds of drug sales involving large quantities of both fentanyl and cocaine.
- Revolution is a very straightforward online marketplace overall.
The dark web is not as dark as you think, warns Europol law enforcement uses specialized techniques to unmask hidden transactions. For example, the FBI has noted that criminals on Tor routinely reuse usernames or expose device details, allowing investigators to trace them. The BKA and ZIT coordinated with Dutch authorities during their investigation, specifically the Zeeland-West-Brabant Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Zeeland-West-Brabant Police.
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Prosecutors said the platform had sales of at least 1.23 billion euros in 2020. The Hydra platform had been active at least since 2015, German prosecutors said. The shutdown was the result of investigations underway since August, in which U.S. authorities participated. They said they seized its server infrastructure in Germany. Its alleged creator and administrator has been arrested in Spain. After each big bust, entrepreneurs and criminals often re-establish sites.
Srinivasan also used the encrypted messaging application Wickr to communicate with and sell drugs to customers. Incognito Market sold illegal narcotics including heroin, cocaine, LSD, MDMA, oxycodone, methamphetamine, ketamine, and alprazolam, as well as misbranded prescription medication. While concealing their identities with a unique username or “moniker,” users were able to search thousands of listings for narcotics of their choice. Incognito Market was available globally to anyone with internet access using the Tor web browser on the “dark web” or “darknet.” Incognito Market was designed to facilitate seamless narcotics transactions, incorporating many features of legitimate e-commerce sites such as branding, advertising, and customer service. According to court documents and statements made in court, Incognito Market was an online narcotics bazaar that started on the dark web in October 2020.
Authorities at EMCDDA say, “The events of 2020 are likely to have a longterm impact on the future challenges arising in the area of drugs.” The report said the cocaine seized in 2018 was also more pure and that, “Indicators point to high availability of cocaine on the European market and signs of growth in countries where it was previously uncommon.” The EMCDDA said authorities had seized 181 tons of cocaine in 2018 (the last year covered in the 2020 report), 40 tons more than in 2017; heroin seizures almost doubled during that same period. “The hidden internet is no longer hidden and your anonymous activity is not anonymous, the golden age of the dark web marketplace is over,” said Europol’s Edvardas Sileris. Europol says evidence seized in that “akedown “provided investigators with quantitative data and materials to identify suspects behind dark web accounts used for illegal activity.”
- One vender, “Ladyskywalker,” operated on several darknet marketplaces, where the individual advertised and sold opioids such as fentanyl, oxycodone and hydrocodone.
- German authorities have announced the takedown of an illicit underground marketplace called Nemesis Market that peddled narcotics, stolen data, and various cybercrime services.
- Roman assisted his co-conspirators by pressing counterfeit Adderall pills, packaging them, and distributing drug orders into the mail using the U.S.
- The affidavit in support of the criminal complaint filed in Los Angeles outlines how the defendants operated a sophisticated online marketplace that offered encrypted communications between buyers and sellers, as well as an online forum to discuss vendors and the quality of their wares.
- That case, like Archetyp, demonstrates how darknet infrastructure is often transnational, technically sophisticated, and deeply intertwined with the global financial system.
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But the Darknet perpetrators are difficult to prosecute — especially since drug-dealing is often “victimless crime” that neither party has an interest in reporting. Studies have shown that Darknet drug dealers offer higher product qualities than street dealers. In any case, online dealers have long since arrived in popular culture. Accordingly, the crime statistics for 2018 show a 27.5% increase in “drug offenses in connection with the internet as a means of committing crimes” compared to 2017. And with perpetrators who did not know each other personally, but only their online pseudonyms and nicknames, as prosecutor Bussweiler points out. The DarkMarket operation was called DarkHunTor and the Wall Street Market operation was dubbed DisrupTor.
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Investigations against the group, suspected of jointly engaging in the unauthorized trade of narcotics and prescription drugs, commenced in October 2023. Approximately €100,000 in cash was also confiscated, along with illegal online sales platforms and servers located in the United Kingdom and Finland. German authorities announced on Friday the dismantling of a large-scale drug trafficking network operating on the darknet, near the German-Dutch border. Earlier this year, international law enforcement joined forces to take down the LockBit ransomware operation, seizing its infrastructure and arresting six gang members to date.
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It was one of the biggest drug busts in German history. Germany led Operation Deep Sentinel, but authorities from other countries also assisted in the Europe-wide efforts, including the Netherlands, Romania, Spain, Sweden, and the US. €7.8 million ($9 million) was seized from Archetyp’s biggest vendor alone. The BKA also said 20 additional properties were searched, mainly targeting Archtetyp moderators and vendors.
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Prior to its takedown by law enforcement, narcotics traffickers and cybercriminals openly traded in illegal drugs and services on Nemesis, which was designed with built-in money laundering features. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Iran-based Behrouz Parsarad (Parsarad), the sole administrator of Nemesis, an online darknet marketplace, which was subject of an international law enforcement operation and was taken down in 2024. BERLIN (AP) — German authorities said Thursday they have taken down a major online marketplace for drugs, cybercrime services and fraudulently obtained credit card data. BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Police across Europe have dismantled a dark web drug marketplace known as ‘Archetyp Market’, the pan-European Europol police body said on Monday, which added that U.S. authorities had also assisted them in the operation. Prosecutors in Frankfurt described the “Hydra Market” platform as the world’s biggest illegal darknet marketplace.
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“It gave us all goosebumps” says Sebastian Zwiebel, as he describes the moment his team shut down Hydra, the world’s largest darknet marketplace. “Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, more people have turned to the darknet than ever before to buy drugs,” Monaco said. Investigators also recovered a slew of illegal drugs, including counterfeit medication and opioid pills, along with more than 152 kilograms of amphetamine, 21 kilograms of cocaine and 32.5 kilograms of MDMA, according to prosecutors. The shut down of the markets came ahead of the one year anniversary of a spree shooting in Munich using a weapon bought on the darknet. Two Germans are believed to be behind the notorious darknet drug market Hansa.
