April 6, 2022
Authorities in Germany have seized servers and other infrastructure from Hydra, the world’s largest cybercrime forum. The site went offline after a law enforcement operation.
Previous pages or resources on the site can no longer be accessed. Instead, access to the platform only displays graphics with the seals of several law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration.
The graphic indicates that the page has been shut down.
Germany’s Central Office for Combating Cybercrime (known as ZIT) and the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) seized Hydra’s server infrastructure and 543 bitcoins worth about $25 million.
“The seizures carried out today were preceded by extensive investigations that have been conducted by the BKA and the ZIT since August 2021 and in which several US authorities were involved,” the authorities said in a statement.
Hydra facilitates illegal transactions and activities such as the sale of narcotics, counterfeit documents, money laundering services for cryptocurrencies and other digital goods.
Hydria has facilitated transactions worth more than $5 billion since its launch in 2015, with 17 million customers and more than 19,000 vendor accounts registered, according to German authorities.
For more information, read the original story in ArsTechnica.
