Takedown of a Titan: Hydra Marketplace Organizers Sentenced in Russia

A court in the Moscow region has delivered its verdict against the organizers of Hydra, the largest dark web marketplace for drug trafficking, according to the regional prosecutor’s office. The principal organizer, Stanislav Moiseyev, was sentenced to life imprisonment and fined 4 million rubles. The other accomplices received prison sentences ranging from 8 to 23 years, along with fines totaling 16 million rubles. The convicted individuals will serve their sentences in high-security penal colonies.

According to case materials, the criminal organization operated from 2015 to October 2018 across Russia and Belarus. Communication among its members was conducted via the internet and telephone networks. Drug distribution was carried out through contactless methods using hidden stash sites. “During the dismantling of the criminal network, law enforcement officers seized nearly a ton of narcotics and psychotropic substances in various regions of the Russian Federation. These were found during searches of the defendants’ residences, houses adapted as laboratories for producing illegal substances, garages used for storage, and vehicles equipped with secret compartments,” the authorities reported.

The court ordered the confiscation of the convicts’ property, including vehicles, land plots, and real estate, for the benefit of the state. Additionally, their assets were frozen to ensure the payment of fines. The verdict has not yet entered into legal force.

In April 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the takedown of Hydra Market, noting that in 2021, Hydra accounted for approximately 80% of all transactions on dark markets. Since 2015, the platform had facilitated transactions amounting to about $5.2 billion in cryptocurrency. In collaboration with Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt), Hydra’s servers and cryptocurrency wallets containing $25 million in Bitcoin were seized.