Hydra market founder, Stanislav Moiseev, was sentenced to life in prison by a Russian court for running a $5 billion crypto-fueled black market.
Stanislav Moiseev, the proprietor of Hydra, an online black market and crypto mixing service that garnered over $5 billion in cryptocurrency revenue during its operation, has been sentenced to life imprisonment by a Russian court.
According to a statement issued by the Moscow Prosecutor’s Office on December 2, Moiseev and 15 of his accomplices were convicted by a Moscow Regional Court of unlawfully producing and selling psychotropic substances and drugs, as well as organizing a criminal community.
The sentences that Moiseev’s 15 accomplices received ranged from 8 to 23 years.
In addition, Moiseev was sentenced to a fine of $38,100 (4 million rubles), and his 15 accomplices were ordered to pay a combined total of $152,400 (16 million rubles).
Properties and vehicles associated with the convicted were also confiscated as part of their sentencing orders.
“They will serve their sentences in correctional colonies under “strict regimens,” according to the Russian state-owned media outlet TASS.”
According to the United States Justice Department, Hydra was the largest darknet marketplace in the world, accounting for 80% of all darknet-related crypto transactions in 2021 and generating over $5.2 billion in cryptocurrency between its inception in 2015 and its closure in 2022.
It was infamous for the sale of counterfeit currencies, false identity documents, and stolen credit card data.
Hydra Market Frauds
According to a May 2021 report from blockchain security firm Flashpoint, Hydra’s crypto volumes on exchanges increased by 624% year-over-year between 2018 and 2020 as its criminal operations became more sophisticated. Flashpoint has since partnered with TRM Labs as a result.
The service was shut down by German authorities in April 2022, who seized custody of its Bitcoin and servers, which were located in the country. The service had 17 million customers and 19,000 vendor accounts. Additionally, German law enforcement confiscated nearly a ton of psychotropic substances and narcotic drugs.
Since 2016, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia has conducted an investigation into Hydra.
Alexander Chirkov, Andrei Trunov, Evgeny Andreev, Ivan Koryakin, Vadim Krasninsky, Georgy Kierobiani, Artur Kolesnikov, Nikolai Bilyk, Alekandr Kabalina, Mikhail Dombrovkogo, Alexander Aminova, and Sergey Czech were the other Hydra members who were sentenced.
The sentences are subject to appeal.
According to a report published earlier this year by Chainalysis, darknet marketplaces generated a minimum of $1.7 billion in revenue in 2023, a significant increase from the shutdown of Hydra in 2022.
