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Operation Deep Sentinel

June 2025, Darknet market
Led by Bundeskriminalamt

Verified core entry, last reviewed August 21, 2026

What was taken down?

Server infrastructure seized by Dutch police; marketplace taken offline and replaced with seizure notice; approximately 7.8 million EUR in assets seized.[1][2]

See what happened

What happened to the people?

Officials reported 8 apprehended.
Group accounted for: Likely complete

See people and accountability

Did it stay down?

After this action later activity was recorded, though its link to the original is not established. Medium confidence in the link between the two.

See what happened afterward

German-led multinational operation seizing the Monero-only Archetyp drug marketplace, with the administrator arrested in Spain and vendors and a moderator arrested in Germany and Sweden.[1][2]

Announced June 16, 2025.

Date
June 11 to June 13, 2025
Target
Archetyp Market, tor hidden service marketplace
Activity
Darknet market
Operational lead
BKA
Partners
Europol, ZIT, and 4 more[1]
Jurisdiction
Germany, Spain, Netherlands, Sweden, Romania, United States, and European Union
Outcome
Server infrastructure seized by Dutch police; marketplace taken offline and replaced with seizure notice; approximately 7.8 million EUR in assets seized.
Status
Completed
Legal mechanism
German judicial orders, European Arrest Warrant, Dutch and Spanish judicial cooperation, Eurojust coordination
Group accounted for
Likely complete

Infrastructure

1 onion service seized. Servers seized, with no count in the record.

1
onion service seized
Identifier Recorded as Status Notes
Not published Server Seized, Netherlands Marketplace server infrastructure seized by Dutch police.[1]
Not published 1 onion service Seized Hidden service taken offline and replaced with a seizure notice.[1]

Domains and onion addresses are shown defanged. Where the record gives a count but no identifier, the count is shown in place of one. This list carries only what appears in the cited sources.

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 administrator and a moderator were arrested and infrastructure seized. Digital forensics were described as ongoing, so the full core roster is not confirmed closed.

One administrator and one moderator publicly described as the core operating group; six additional arrests were top vendors, a separate population.

See the organizations and roles behind this action

Prosecutions ongoing in Germany and Spain as of the cutoff.[1][2]

  1. Date not established

    No documented return. Relationship not established. Confidence: Medium. Not established.[1]

    No affirmative evidence of a return was found through the cutoff. The administrator had published a signed statement indicating the market would not return.

Date not established

No documented return. Relationship not established. Confidence: Medium. Not established.[1]

No affirmative evidence of a return was found through the cutoff. The administrator had published a signed statement indicating the market would not return.

Return class F. The class is a research grading carried in the source dataset and its scale is not published, so this page relies on the relationship and confidence values instead. How this index handles it.

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

Official sources

  1. [1]
    Europol release on the takedown of Archetyp Market

    Europol, June 16, 2025, Source grade P2

    Operation dates, participating agencies and roles, arrests, asset seizure, marketplace scale

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

  2. [2]
    Bundeskriminalamt statement on Operation Deep Sentinel

    Bundeskriminalamt, June 16, 2025, Source grade P1

    German lead role, arrests, seizure details

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

Coverage note.
  • Suspects were not publicly named, so no person records were created despite an official apprehension count of eight.
  • Do not conflate the six arrested vendors with core operators. They are recorded as a separate group segment in commentary only.
  • Platform scale at takedown: more than 600,000 users, roughly 3,200 vendors, more than 17,000 listings, more than 250 million EUR in turnover.