Author: Brayden Lindrea, CoinTelegraph; Compiler: Wuzhu, Golden Finance
Stanislav Moiseev, the founder of online black market and cryptocurrency mixing service Hydra, who received more than $5 billion worth of cryptocurrency during his operations, has been sentenced to life imprisonment by a Russian court.
The Moscow District Court found Moiseev and 15 of his associates guilty of organizing a criminal group to illegally produce and sell psychotropic substances and narcotics, the Moscow Prosecutor's Office said in a statement on December 2.
Moiseev's 15 associates were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 8 to 23 years.
The Moscow Prosecutor's Office issued a statement on December 2, saying that the Moscow District Court found Moiseev and 15 of his associates guilty of organizing a criminal group to illegally produce and sell psychotropic substances and narcotics.
Moiseev's 15 associates were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 8 to 23 years.
Moiseev was also fined $38,100 (4 million rubles), while his 15 accomplices were ordered to pay a total of $152,400 (16 million rubles).
Property and vehicles associated with the convicted were also confiscated as part of the sentencing order.
They will serve their sentences in a correctional facility under a "strict regime," according to Russian state media Tass.
The scene of the Moscow court sentencing Hydra. Source: TASS
According to the US Department of Justice, Hydra was once the world's largest dark web market, accounting for 80% of all dark web-related cryptocurrency transactions in 2021, and its cryptocurrency revenue exceeded US$5.2 billion from its launch in 2015 to its closure in 2022.
It is notorious for selling stolen credit card data, counterfeit currency, and fake IDs.
As its criminal activities became more sophisticated, Hydra’s cryptocurrency trading volume on exchanges surged 624% year-over-year between 2018 and 2020, according to a May 2021 report by blockchain security firm Flashpoint.
German authorities shut down the company in April 2022, taking control of its bitcoin and servers in the country, and reported that the service had 17 million customers and 19,000 vendor accounts. German law enforcement also seized nearly a ton of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances.
Hydra has been under investigation by Russia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs since 2016.
Other members of the group sentenced include 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.
The sentences can be appealed.
According to a Chainalysis report earlier this year, darknet markets are expected to generate at least $1.7 billion in revenue in 2023, a further increase from 2022, when Hydra was shut down.
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