The DarkMarket page was reportedly the largest dark web market in the world. Following an international operation coordinated by Europol, the authorities managed to close it.
German authorities have arrested an Australian man believed to be the administrator of the illegal website and confiscated 20 servers, shutting down a large hub of illegal activity.
Prior to the closure, DarkMarket hosted about 500.000 users and facilitated more than 320.000 transactions, according to Europol.
The market traded everything from drugs to counterfeits money to stolen credit card information and malware.
According to Europol's estimate, the site had traded the equivalent of 140 million euros, in bitcoin and monero. European authorities plan to use the confiscated DarkMarket servers from Ukraine and Moldova to further investigate buyers and sellers who have used the site for criminal transactions.
DarkMarket was uncovered in a wider investigation into the company Cyberbunker web hosting. Cyberbunker (which is based in a formercase of NATO) hosted Pirate Bay and WikiLeaks servers in the past. Of course, DarkMarket's case is the biggest.
In recent years, there has been a tightening of dark web sites and sites such as DarkMarket. THE Wall Street Market, had a similar end in 2020 during a European survey and other sites such as Empire Market have disappeared altogether, either out of fear of prosecution or because managers are collecting revenue and disappearing.
So sites like Alphabay or Silk Road have disappeared as government agencies have proven that the dark web is not so anonymous.
