Hydra : Russia ‘s Dark Marketplace
German police said they have taken down Russian-language illegal darknet marketplace Hydra, the largest such network in the world, and seized bitcoins worth €23 million ($25 million).
- Founded in 2015, Hydra sold illegal drugs, stolen credit card data, counterfeit currency and fake identity documents, masking the identities of those involved using the Tor encryption network.
- The marketplace had around 17 million customer accounts and over 19,000 vendor accounts, according to the BKA federal police.
- The Hydra market was probably the illegal marketplace with the highest turnover worldwide, with sales amounting to at least €1.23 billion in 2020 alone.
- A dark net or darknet is an overlay network within the Internet that can only be accessed with specific software, configurations, or authorization, and often uses a unique customized communication protocol.
