World's Biggest Darknet Marketplace, Russia-linked Hydra Market, …

The marketplace also facilitated gross sales of false identification paperwork, hacking instruments and providers, mega darknet market and cash laundering companies for bitcoin.

The DOJ said it had obtained an indictment towards a resident of Russia, 30-yr-previous Dmitry Olegovich Pavlov, for conspiracy to distribute narcotics and conspiracy to commit cash laundering, in connection with his operation and administration of the servers used to run Hydra.

Beginning in late 2015, Pavlov allegedly operated an organization that administered Hydra's servers, "which allowed the market to operate as a platform utilized by thousands of drug dealers and other unlawful vendors to distribute massive portions of unlawful medication and other illicit goods and companies to thousands of consumers, and to launder billions of dollars derived from these unlawful transactions," in response to the DOJ.

"Together with our German legislation enforcement partners, we now have seized the infrastructure of the world's largest darknet market, but our work is far from over," U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a press release.