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DarkMarket shutdown

January 2021, Darknet market
Led by Bundeskriminalamt

Extended pass entry, last reviewed August 21, 2026

What was taken down?

Servers seized; site taken offline.

See what happened

What happened to the people?

Officials reported 1 apprehended.
Group accounted for: Likely complete

See people and accountability

Did it stay down?

Not established in the public record. No later activity is recorded against this entry.

See what happened afterward

German authorities seized DarkMarket server infrastructure and arrested the alleged operator near the German-Danish border; Europol reported roughly 500,000 users and more than 2,400 sellers.

Date
January 2021
Target
DarkMarket, darknet market
Activity
Darknet market
Operational lead
BKA
Partners
Europol[1]
Jurisdiction
Not established
Outcome
Servers seized; site taken offline.
Status
Completed
Legal mechanism
German judicial search/seizure authority.
Group accounted for
Likely complete

No individual is named against this entry in the cited record. That is a gap in what has been published rather than a finding that nobody was involved.

Group accounted for: Likely complete

The single alleged operator was arrested; exact German charge counts were not made public in English-language material.

Europol reported approximately 500,000 users and more than 2,400 sellers.

See the organizations and roles behind this action

Not established in the public record. No later activity is recorded against this entry.

Numbered markers throughout this entry link to the source that supports the claim beside them.

Official sources

  1. [1]
    DarkMarket: world's largest illegal dark web marketplace taken down

    Europol, January 12, 2021, Source grade P2

    Establishes the DarkMarket server seizure, operator arrest, and user/seller scale.

    No address recorded for this source. Publisher, title, and date are given so it can be retrieved from the publisher.

Coverage note. Added from deep-research aggregation pass. Not independently re-verified source-by-source to the same standard as the original 38-incident core; source_quality capped at S2/P2 pending a dedicated verification pass.