"The servers of the world's largest darknet market have been confiscated and 543 bitcoins with a total value of around 23 million euros have been secured," according to a statement from the Frankfurt public prosecutor's office and the Federal Office of Police. criminal (BKA).
Investigators suspect this platform, which has around 17 million customers, of being used for criminal activities and money laundering through more than 19,000 seller accounts.
At least 1.23 billion euros in sales were made through the "Hydra Market" platform in 2020 alone, making it "the illegal market with the highest turnover in the world", according to the communicated.
Hydra dominates the market because Ukraine and Russia are the top two cryptocurrency users in the world, claims Kim Grauer, head of research at Chainalysis, as quoted by Bloomberg.
The Russian-language site accessible through the Tor network was mainly used for trading drugs, stolen data and forged documents.
A banner announcing the police seizure was posted on the Hydra website on Tuesday, authorities said.
A sophisticated service, dubbed the "bitcoin bank mixer", was used to conceal digital financial transactions with cryptocurrencies, making the investigation much more difficult, points out the BKA.
The investigations started in 2021 but the identity of the operators and administrators responsible for the platform is currently unclear.
The American authorities were also implicated, specifies the BKA.
The German authorities had already dismantled the "DarkMarket" platform in early 2021, then presented by investigators as the most important point of sale in the black cybermarket.
This operation led a few months later to a worldwide crackdown leading to the arrest of some 150 people who were buying or selling drugs or weapons.
© 2022 AFP