Category
Darknet market takedowns
Actions against hidden marketplaces trading in drugs, weapons, credentials, and other illicit goods.
Records
12
2013 to 2025
Infrastructure
13
Items recorded as acted on
People named
7
Distinct people in these records
Sources
25
Cited across the category
What this category covers
Server seizures, covert takeovers where investigators ran a market before closing it, the identification of operators, and what the public record establishes about where buyers and vendors went afterwards.
Every entry below is an action that was carried out, not an announcement of intent. The counting rules and the inclusion definition apply to this category exactly as they apply to the rest of the index.
What the record does not settle
- 5 of 12 records have a documented successor. Silence in the other rows is not evidence that a service stayed down.
- Reported figures come from the acting authorities. Named figures come from people recorded individually here. The two are never added together.
Chronology
| Date | Takedown | Target | Led by | Jurisdictions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 1, 2013 | Silk Road seizure | Silk Road | FBI | International |
| Nov 5, 2014 | Operation Onymous | Silk Road 2.0 and additional Tor marketplaces | FBI | International |
| Jun 20, 2017 | Hansa covert takeover and shutdown | Hansa Market | Dutch National Police | International |
| Jul 4, 2017 | AlphaBay seizure | AlphaBay | FBI and DEA | International |
| May 3, 2019 | Wall Street Market / Silkkitie (Valhalla) shutdown | Wall Street Market and Silkkitie/Valhalla | BKA and Tulli | Not established |
| Jan 12, 2021 | DarkMarket shutdown | DarkMarket | BKA | Not established |
| Dec 1, 2021 | Monopoly Market seizure | Monopoly Market | BKA | Not established |
| Apr 5, 2022 | Hydra Market server seizure | Hydra Market | BKA | International |
| May 2, 2023 | Operation SpecTor | Multiple darknet-market vendors and buyers (Monopoly Market intelligence) | Not established | Not established |
| Dec 1, 2023 | Kingdom Market seizure | Kingdom Market | FBI and HSI | Not established |
| Mar 20, 2024 | Nemesis Market seizure | Nemesis Market | BKA | Not established |
| Jun 11, 2025 | Operation Deep Sentinel | Archetyp Market | BKA | International |
Who leads these actions
Where they were carried out
- United States 5 records
- Germany 4 records
- Netherlands 4 records
- European Union 3 records
- Lithuania 2 records
- Canada 1 record
- Spain 1 record
- France 1 record
A takedown is counted once for every country named in its geographic scope, so these figures sum to more than 12.