Darknet on the Kremlin's side: Cybercrimini helped finance war with Ukraine

The fact is that in April 2022, the largest Darknet - Hydra. There could be a variety of drugs. But with the arrest of Dmitry Pavlov, one of the founders of "Hydra", everything was not over, as new sites appeared, hoping to seize the market, estimated at $ 1. 37 billion, reads in the material. For almost a year, OMG, Kraken and about 10 other similar sites tried to take the place of Hydra, collapse with a huge amount of cyberattacks.

According to the analyst with TRM Labs Alois Aphilipoi, various criminal groups use such platforms to wash money, sell user data and more. through Russian platforms in Darknet. But most amazing, this is that the Russian segment of Darknet was involved in a conflict between the Russian Federation and Ukraine, the media reports. According to journalists, one of the platforms was related to the Killnet hacker group, which, for its part, is related to the Kremlin.

The TRM Labs report states that Killnet, which used cryptocurrencies worth $ 280,000 to finance Russia's hostilities and attacked Starlink, Ukraine's government sites, also attacked Rutor, OMG -related forum, and a rival with the Solar . Decades after the US government has closed the world's first Silk Road, four Russian Darknet platforms-OMG, Kraken, BlackSprut and Mega-are now dominated by Darknet.

Decades after the US government has closed the world's first Silk Road, four Russian Darknet platforms-OMG, Kraken, BlackSprut and Mega-are now dominated by Darknet. TRM Labs estimated that 820 million in cryptocurrency has accumulated $ 820 million since the closure of Hydra. In December 2022, they have earned $ 130 million. The English -language Darknet market accounts for less than 10% of sales.

With the advent of online drugs in the mid-2010s, people who buy drugs in Russia do so through Darknet. And even today, Russians who have escaped from the country after the Armed Forces have invaded the territory of Ukraine, still have the opportunity to buy drugs in Darknet. In Georgia, for example, Matanga, Matanga, which offers the same "products" as in the Russian Federation.

Even in the occupied territories of Ukraine behind Mariupol, the Telegram bots offered by the Hashish, Mepedron and Alfa-PVP (synthetic psychostimulator) were carefully monitored, trading in the stroke before the destroyed city was repaired. It has not been established how drugs have fallen into the occupied territory of Ukraine, but the network is likely to work through the help of Russian soldiers or non -governmental staff, according to the material.

It seems that along with Solaris, other Darknet sites supported Russia's invasion of Ukraine. In an interview with Meduzi, forbidden by Russian media, Alexei Milchakov, the leader of the pro -Russian neo -Nazi paramilitary "Rusich" group, said the group received small donations in cryptocurrency from Mega, BlackSprut and OMG. They spent money on equipment and bulletproof vests.

There is no evidence that this money was voluntarily transferred to Darknet-sites-perhaps they were stolen-but Milchakov called these drug dealers the true patriots of Russia. In December 2022, a hacker of Ukrainian descent broke the cryptoamens of the Solaris market and sacrificed $ 25,000 for charity for Ukrainian refugees. Solaris did not end there. Recently, Wayaway's competitors broke out Solaris using the code vulnerability and closed the platform.

Now those who are trying to access Solaris are redirected to "Kraken!. First aid in cases of overdose, - said Alexei Lakhov from the St. Petersburg project drugmap. ru. - At the Wayaway Forum, there is a whole section called "Drug Service" at the Kraken shopping ground. So we can say that a campaign aimed at believing people that drugs are not so much harm, has become an integral part of Russian Darknet. " drugs. In this regard, Darknet was as adaptive as offline trade.