Germany takes down Hydra, world's largest darknet market:
The servers of Hydra Market, the most prominent Russian darknet platform for selling drugs and money laundering, have been seized by the German police.
The police were also able to seize 543 bitcoins from the profits of Hydra, which are currently worth a little over $25 million.
The confiscated money indicate the size of the Hydra market, which counted around 19,000 registered seller accounts that served at least 17 million customers around the world.
In an announcement today, the Central Office for Combating Cybercrime (ZIT) and Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) estimate that Hydra Market had a turnover of $1.35 billion in 2020, making it the largest darknet market in the world.
[...] Apart from narcotics and money laundering services, which were the main focus, Hydra also offered stolen databases, forged documents, and hacking for hire services.
At the moment, Hydra's homepage shows that the BKA acting on behalf of the Attorney General's Office in Frankfurt am Main seized the market's infrastructure following a coordinated international law enforcement effort.
[...] In the meantime, the seized equipment most likely contains incriminating evidence on Hydra sellers and clients, so a significant number of users could be charged in an upcoming second phase.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 05 2022, @11:58PM (1 child)
Yous gotta wack a mole. It ain't gonna wack itself, you know.
Hm....
Actually, if you don't play wack-a-mole, moles will multiply, and eventually they will wack each other. But that don't seem like much of an improvement.
Oh well, keep on keeping on.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday April 06 2022, @02:45PM
That's why there's still a market for mole traps....
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 06 2022, @12:11AM
They must be doing this ahead of the launch of the official German online marketplace for clean and safe drugs, with support for cryptocurrencies.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by looorg on Wednesday April 06 2022, @12:16AM (4 children)
If they had a turnover of $1.35B per year I'm fairy certain a new head will spawn very soon. Or whichever was the second largest is now the largest and just got promoted to darkweb enemy number one and will receive a large influx of new business and users ... and eyeballs from various investigative services.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Reziac on Wednesday April 06 2022, @03:51AM (3 children)
From what I can find it sounds like what they nailed might be just an expansion, not the main deal:
https://www.darknetmarkets.com/directory/listing/hydra-market/ [darknetmarkets.com]
And apparently the takedown was a coordinated effort:
https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2022/04/05/justice-department-seizes-russian-based-hydra-market-in-darknet-crackdown/ [cbslocal.com]
And if they can take out Hydra Market, why can't they do likewise to all the other dark markets?? My cynical little voice opines that they don't because the TLAs use 'em too, to move dark money, and perhaps some devil-you-know.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by looorg on Wednesday April 06 2022, @12:13PM (1 child)
If they make $1.35B a year I just assume there is some redundancy somewhere that will kick in, if the Pirate Bay can have mirrors and shit all over the place that come back in a day at most then I'm sure these guys could figure it out to. After all if you make that kind of bank you have a very big incentive to keep it going I would say. Also the resources.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday April 06 2022, @02:48PM
Exactly. This was probably about as effective as mowing your lawn by plucking individual stems of grass.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 10 2022, @03:09AM
(Score: 3, Funny) by MIRV888 on Wednesday April 06 2022, @12:43AM
He did. I saw the documentary.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by captain normal on Wednesday April 06 2022, @02:06AM (2 children)
Anything that makes life more difficult for the Bratva is good. Maybe they will even get tired of Vladimir and make him an offer he can't refuse.
"It is easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they have been fooled" Mark Twain
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 06 2022, @02:18AM
Aww, that's so cute.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 06 2022, @02:39AM
In Russian Federation, offer refuses you.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by legont on Wednesday April 06 2022, @05:02AM
Servers are in Germany. Clients are, it seems, not in Russia too.
Language? Well, half of Estonia speaks Russian and they are notoriously good hackers. 3/4 of Ukraine speaks mostly Russian and they are in business too. Both have much easier ways to Europe where drugs and money are probably going.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HammeredGlass on Wednesday April 06 2022, @01:21PM (4 children)
It's okay though, because Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia!!!
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday April 06 2022, @03:37PM (3 children)
So, you're against law enforcement doing it's job?
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by HammeredGlass on Wednesday April 06 2022, @04:41PM (1 child)
Yes, I am against govt. gangs.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 06 2022, @09:46PM
Ah ha, a moron of quality! Too bad bout the moron part.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 06 2022, @07:20PM
lmao! "Drugs" and "money laundering" are not real crimes. Fuck the pigs. They are just henchmen for the banks and criminal, illegitimate governments. You probably still think the US gov is legit. You probably think the international banking cartel is a legitimate way to run finance.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday April 06 2022, @01:48PM
Fuck. Where am I gonna unload all that Theranos stock now?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 07 2022, @03:42AM
I never used hydra but I have used other darknet markets and it was standard practice as a buyer to encrypt all your messages with the public key of the seller. Ideally, the seller would only decrypt the message on their own computer and nothing but encrypted text would be left on the servers. Presuming everyone did things correctly of course. And I don't see it taking long before one of the smaller markets moves in to fill the money-shaped hole that hydra left.