A Russian court has convicted Stanislav Moiseev, the founder of the renowned darknet bazaar Hydra, to life in jail. The court convicted Moiseev and 15 of his friends for running a criminal enterprise that trafficked drugs and psychiatric substances and engaged in illicit operations on the Dark Web.
The Moscow Regional Court issued the verdict, with Moiseev receiving a life sentence and his accomplices obtaining prison sentences ranging from 8 to 23 years. In addition to the prison sentences, the court imposed significant penalties. The court imposed a fine of 4 million rubles (about $38,000) on Moiseev, and a total of 16 million rubles ($151,000) on the 15 co-conspirators. The court also took property and vehicles belonging to the convicted persons.
Hydra, which existed from 2015 until its demise in 2022, was formerly the largest darknet marketplace, conducting more than $5 billion in cryptocurrency transactions. The network was infamous for selling illegal products such as drugs, stolen data, forged currencies, and counterfeit documents. It attracted millions of users and thousands of suppliers, making it a major nexus for illegal activity.
Authorities had been investigating Hydra for years, and in 2022, international law enforcement, including German and US agents, successfully shut down the marketplace. They seized servers and nearly a ton of illegal drugs from the marketplace. The marketplace’s business model was mainly based on cryptocurrencies and anonymous transactions, making it a prime target for law enforcement organizations worldwide.
Despite Hydra’s collapse, the worldwide darknet industry is thriving, with alternative platforms rising to replace it. According to recent research, darknet markets will earn more than $1.7 billion in income by 2023, illustrating the continued growth of illicit internet activity. However, the imprisonment of Moiseev and his associates represents a huge step forward in the fight against cybercrime and the dark web economy.
