Court Arrests Alleged Co-Founder of Hydra Dark Web Store

The Meshchansky COURT of Moscow arrested Dmitry Pavlov, who in the United States is called one of the founders of the darknet site Hydra, which sold drugs, fake documents, databases with data leaks and other illegal goods. Information about the arrest is contained in the case card.

According to the case file, D.Oh. Pavlov is charged under Part 5 of Art. 228.1 of the Criminal Code (illegal production, sale or transfer of narcotic drugs on an especially large scale), as a punishment, it provides for imprisonment for up to 20 years. The decision was made on 11 April.

On April 6, the US Department of Justice published an indictment against Russian Dmitry Olegovich Pavlov, he was named as the manager of the domain services LegalRC.biz and Wayaway.biz, as a result of the partnership, according to the Department of Justice, Hydra appeared in 2013. Access to the site through the Tor network was opened in 2015.

A day earlier, the United States imposed sanctions against Hydra, and Germany confiscated the platform's servers and bitcoins worth the equivalent of €23 million.

Hydra was considered the largest darknet marketplace, it was focused on Russian-speaking countries. In 2021, it accounted for 80% of all global darknet market revenue, according to a Chainalysis report. According to the German prosecutor's office, in total, about 17 million customers and more than 19 thousand sellers were registered on the site. According to German law enforcement agencies, sales on Hydra amounted to at least €1.23 billion in 2020.