The US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has added 44 Bitcoin and five Monero addresses associated with the closed darknet marketplace Nemesis Market to the SDN.
The press release says they were controlled by Iranian citizen Behrouz Parsarad, who was allegedly the platform’s administrator.
On March 20, 2024, BKA seized Nemesis Market infrastructure in Germany and Lithuania, disrupting its operations. In the process, police confiscated digital assets worth €94,000.
The investigation began in October 2022.
The platform, created in 2021, sold drugs, stolen data and credit cards, as well as cybercriminal services, including ransomware, phishing, and DDoS.
Before the shutdown, Nemesis had an active audience of 30,000 users who carried out ~$30 million in drug transactions.
Parsarad received millions of dollars in commissions from the transactions and facilitated the laundering of digital assets, according to OFAC.
The administrator remains at large. According to the agency, Parsarad may have “discussed the creation of a new darknet market” with former suppliers.
Recall that in April 2022, German police confiscated the servers of the darknet marketplace Hydra and seized 543 BTC, and the US Treasury imposed sanctions on the platform.
That same month, an American court indicted Russian Dmitry Pavlov in absentia for administering Hydra, providing it with hosting services, conspiring to launder money, and distributing drugs. At the same time, the Meshchansky District Court of Moscow arrested Pavlov on another charge.
In December 2024, the Moscow Regional Court sentenced Hydra founder Stanislav Moiseev to life imprisonment and a fine of 4 million rubles.