German authorities have just taken down Archetyp Market, a dark web empire specializing in the sale of drugs. The operation, dubbed Deep Sentinel, mobilized law enforcement agencies from six European countries and investigators from Europol and Eurojust. Between 11 and 13 June, "a series of coordinated interventions took place" in Germany, the Netherlands, Romania, Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands, Europol explains in a press release. The operations, carried out by more than 300 officers, led to the collapse of the platform, which was hosted in the Netherlands.
Cocaine, heroin, and fentanyl
As the German criminal police explained, Archetyp Market was "one of the largest and oldest criminal platforms on the darknet."Emerging around 2020, the black market allowed Internet users to buy and have delivered a range of narcotics, such as cocaine, MDMA, amphetamines, and opioids, such as heroin.
The platform accepted the sale of a product that was widely rejected by criminal markets: fentanyl. This synthetic opioid, 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine, causes tens of thousands of deaths per year, especially in North America. Archetyp Market's turnover exceeded €250 million. Archetyp Market was one of the most lucrative drug sales platforms on the dark web. Before closing its doors, the black market claimed more than 600,000 users worldwide, 3,200 active sellers, and more than 17,000 online ads. A large proportion of the transactions were carried out by sellers based in Germany. Europol said Archetyp Market follows in the footsteps of now-defunct platforms such as Dream Market, which was shut down in 2019 following attacks on its servers, and the notorious Silk Road, the pioneer of dark web black markets, which was shut down in 2013 following an FBI investigation. The founder of Archetyp Market readily admits to having drawn inspiration from Ross Ulbricht, the creator of Silk Road, with whom he shares the same libertarian philosophy.
Buyers in the authorities' sights
As part of Operation Deep Sentinel, law enforcement arrested the administrator of the pirate site. The 30-year-old German national was arrested at his home in Barcelona. Following this, Archetyp Market's six biggest sellers, as well as a moderator, were detained following an operation in Sweden. During the arrests, the authorities were able to seize €7.8 million in assets and a wealth of compromising evidence.
The investigators do not intend to stop there. Using the seized data, they aim to track down and "pursue the platform's sellers and buyers," explains the German prosecutor's office in charge of the crackdown. This "operation led by German authorities marks the end of a criminal service that enabled the anonymous trade of large volumes of illicit drugs," according to Europol. The black market represented "an important supply line for some of the world's most dangerous substances," including fentanyl. On the website dedicated to Operation Deep Sentinel, there is a video of a short animated film that highlights the efforts of police forces against cybercriminals. The film shows that it is very easy to launch a platform on the dark web, but that investigators are lying in wait and ready to act. It concludes with the arrest of the hacker.
The seizure of Archetyp Market follows the forced closure of other criminal marketplaces, such as Sipultie, a drug specialist brought down last fall, Nemesis Market, and CrimeMarket. All of these platforms have been seized by law enforcement over the past two years.
Source: Deep Sentinel
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