“The internet is not an area free of criminal prosecution,” German federal police President Holger Münch has repeatedly declared. But the Darknet perpetrators are difficult to prosecute — especially since drug-dealing is often “victimless crime” that neither party has an interest in reporting. The Federal Criminal Police Office in Germany (BKA) and the Frankfurt cybercrime combating unit (ZIT) conducted the action on Wednesday, March 20, 2024, with law enforcement taking down the website and confiscating approximately $100,000 in cash. Frankfurt prosecutors accuse the men of abetting illicit drug sales, weapons trafficking and plagiarism of copyrighted goods.
Dutch Police Find Netherlands’ Largest Cocaine Lab
At a press conference following the arrest, police were asked if the dealer had hidden all of the drugs under the bed in his childhood bedroom. However, even more damaging for the young criminal was the discovery of a text document on his laptop that gave unprecedented access to an organised list of deliveries dating back to the beginning of the website and also a list of logins for all of his accounts. A spokeswoman from Leipzig police said it was almost a year of investigation that lead to the arrest of the drug dealer. She also said he had banned her from entering his room while he ran the operation — a factor that would explain why she had no knowledge of her son’s illegal actitivies.
German police claim to have disrupted the country’s most popular underground market for drugs and cybercrime. It was in this vacuum that Archetyp emerged, eventually becoming a key landing zone for vendors displaced by earlier market collapses. Archetyp encouraged vendors to re-establish their reputations through Pretty Good Privacy (PGP)-signed migration messages – cryptographically signed proofs that linked new accounts to profiles from previous marketplaces. This allowed buyers to verify that they were transacting with the same vendor as before. On 16 June, any lingering doubt was quickly dispelled when Archetyp’s homepage displayed European law enforcement’s seizure banner – the most recognizable farewell message in the dark web – declaring that the page had been taken offline as part of a law enforcement operation.
The pills sold on darknet marketplaces are often counterfeit and laced with the powerful opioid, Attorney General Merrick Garland said. From June 11 to 13, the agency said, a series of coordinated law enforcement actions targeting the platform’s administrator, moderators, key vendors and technical infrastructure took place across Germany, the Netherlands, Romania, Spain and Sweden. Maximillian S, who cannot be identified after being tried as minor, was found guilty and sentenced to seven years in juvenile detention for obtaining $A6.7 million in bitcoin after selling 914kg worth of illegal drugs over a darknet marketplace known as Shiny Flakes. The earliest modern online anonymous markets, often referred to as darknet markets or cryptomarkets, appeared in early 2010, and evolved from an encrypted email service and migrated on to a Tor (The Onion Router) anonymity network to guarantee better anonymity to users.
- For the first time, FBI agents from all the bureau’s field offices also visited buyers to tell them about the overdose danger of pills sold online, which are often disguised to look like prescription drugs.
- One defendant in California led an organization that bought fentanyl in bulk, pressed it into pills with methamphetamine and sold millions of pills to thousands of people on the dark web, he said.
- Yet, the successful seizure of infrastructure and key individuals proves that no system is invulnerable to coordinated, cross-border law enforcement efforts.
- One vender, “Ladyskywalker,” operated on several darknet marketplaces, where the individual advertised and sold opioids such as fentanyl, oxycodone and hydrocodone.
- “This computer stuff may make a lot of things easier, but it online sale is just as bad as dealing on the street,” Göbel explained.
Police Shut Down Long-running Dark Web Drug Market
He also had the tools for setting up magnetic cards to send and receive goods from the package station with hacked post accounts. Maximilian was a busy young man who planned his operations meticulously and was adequately equipped for comprehensive trade in narcotics worldwide. He seems to have been especially diligent about securing the door to his room—to this day the defendant claims that his mother and stepfather knew nothing about his profitable startup because he would fortify himself in his room whenever he was conducting business. Another thing that stood out to investigators was the routine nature of his deliveries. According to prosecutors, a courier from the Netherlands drove to the Gohlis district of Leipzig each Thursday to replenish Maximilian’s supply of drugs—investigators knew this from watching the package station and the entrance to his house.
Other Government Sites
The computer of the employee was apparently left open to the Hansa platform and contained child porn. He said it was clear the two men had knowledge of IT in order to be able to run such a sophisticated operation. The Department of Justice launched a cross-agency Trade Fraud Task Force to bring robust enforcement against importers and other parties who seek to defraud the United States.
Arrested In Global Crackdown On Dark Web Drug Market
The department said both entities have been used to help finance the activities of ransomware gangs. Maximilian made two mistakes that ultimately sealed his fate and drew the attention of the Leipzig Police. One was not putting the correct postage on some of his packages; one of them ended up being detained for having suspicious contents at a mail center in Leipzig after being returned to sender. Maximilian’s other mistake was always using the same package station located not far from his house.
Implications For Cybercrime
- Darknet, drugs, Bitcoin — these ingredients made “Chemical Revolution” the largest online narcotics shop in Germany.
- THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Authorities in the U.S. and Europe arrested nearly 300 people, confiscated over $53 million, and seized a dark web marketplace as part of an international crackdown on drug trafficking that officials say was the largest operation of its kind.
- Law enforcement agencies worldwide will need to increase their use of AI-driven analytics and cross-border cooperation to stay ahead.
- Nemesis was established in 2021 and operated as a criminal marketplace on the darknet, an encrypted network within the Internet that can only be accessed with special anonymity-enhancing browsers.
- One defendant, for example, used virtual private networks to access WSM computers, but when a VPN connection would fail, his IP was revealed and authorities were able to identify his specific location.
“Platinum45” also manufactured Adderall tablets and advertised the sale of up to 1 kilogram quantities of methamphetamine on WSM. When the FBI and Europol announced the takedown of Genesis Market in 2023, a site known for selling digital fingerprints, many expected demand to dissipate; instead, buyers and sellers regrouped on Telegram. Analysts noted that Telegram enabled a shift toward decentralised “broker networks,” where smaller groups coordinated sales of Genesis-style data. This decentralised model makes it far more challenging to target with a single operation. In a news conference Tuesday, U.S. officials framed the operation within the Biden administration’s broader effort to crack down on illegal fentanyl distribution.
Cyber Press
Everything the police needed for further investigations and for effortlessly shutting down the platform was laid out for them on a silver platter, from Cloudflare access to the login details for his servers at a Dutch company. Shortly after the seizure, the Shiny Flakes website displayed a banner advertising career opportunities with the police in Saxony. Hydra specialised in same-day ‘dead drop’ services, where drug dealers (vendors) hide packages in public places before informing customers of the pick-up location. The platform specialized in synthetic opioids like fentanyl, which accounted for 144 kg of seizures linked to the operation. The platform, active since 2020, facilitated over €250 million in drug sales using the privacy-focused cryptocurrency Monero (XMR) and operated via the Tor network.
Groups used password-protected channels to trade exploits, stolen data, and malware kits. But as operations scaled, IRC’s static architecture and lack of mobile adoption left it vulnerable. The torch passed to dedicated darknet forums, often on the Tor network, which allowed marketplaces and vendor reputation systems to emerge. Its mobile-first design, ease of channel creation, and semi-anonymous architecture made it an attractive choice for actors who needed speed and reach more than secrecy. Once dominated by cloistered IRC channels and hidden .onion forums, the conversation has now moved to mainstream messaging platforms. Today, Telegram channels, bot networks, and private groups have become the default infrastructure for criminal coordination.
Dark Web’s Longest-standing Drug Market Seized In Multinational Effort
The trial of Maximilian S., the alleged operator of the online drug market Shiny Flakes, began Monday in Leipzig. While the authorities continue trying to auction off the 1,197 bitcoins seized from his 10 wallets, his lawyer, Stefan Costabel, is pouring over the many boxes of investigation files, preparing for what may be his hardest defense ever. The German agency said it teamed up with law enforcement from the U.S. and Lithuania to investigate the Nemesis operation. During the year-and-a-half-long investigation, they discovered marketplace infrastructure in Germany and Lithuania, the BKA said. The website launched in 2015 selling drugs, hacked materials, forged documents and illegal digital services such as Bitcoin-mixing – which cyber-criminals use to launder stolen or extorted digital coins.
“This computer stuff may make a lot of things easier, but it online sale is just as bad as dealing on the street,” Göbel explained.
