The founder of Hydra was given a life sentence in the Russian Federation

The Moscow Regional Court sentenced Stanislav Moiseev, the founder of the darknet marketplace Hydra, to life imprisonment and a fine of 4 million rubles. This is reported by Interfax.

Moiseev’s 15 accomplices were sentenced to terms ranging from eight to 23 years with fines totaling 16 million rubles.

All defendants in the case were found guilty of organizing a criminal community, production and sale of drugs on an especially large scale.

Vehicles, land plots and real estate of convicts were confiscated for the benefit of the state. The court also retained the seizure of assets to enforce the sentence in terms of fines.

Hydra is one of the world’s largest darknet marketplaces. According to US authorities, from January 2016 to March 2022, cryptocurrencies worth more than $5 billion were received in wallets controlled by the platform. In 2021, it accounted for 75% of all crypto transactions associated with the darknet—at least €1.23 billion.

In April 2022, German police confiscated Hydra servers and seized 543 BTC, and the US Treasury imposed sanctions against the platform.

In the same month, an American court charged Russian Dmitry Pavlov in absentia with administering a darknet site, providing it with hosting services, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and drug distribution.

At the same time, the Meshchansky District Court of Moscow arrested Pavlov on another charge – he was charged with illegal sale of drugs on an especially large scale. During the investigation, law enforcement officers encountered problems because the defendant refused to provide the password of the crypto-wallet that was seized from him.

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