Odaily News The United States has imposed sanctions on Behrouz Parsarad, the Iranian operator of the darknet market Nemesis, and his crypto addresses. Since its launch in 2021, the market has been used to sell illegal items such as drugs, fake documents and hacking resources.
The sanctioned assets include 44 Bitcoin addresses and 5 Monero addresses, which received more than $850,000, and as the price of cryptocurrencies has risen, the total has exceeded $1.6 million. After the sanctions, US citizens are prohibited from trading with Parsarad and its holding companies.
Before the servers were seized in a joint law enforcement operation by the United States, Germany, and Lithuania, Nemesis had 30,000 active users and thousands of sellers, with money laundering built into the platform. Parsarad is estimated to have made millions of dollars in profits and is still trying to rebuild operations.
Despite the increase in law enforcement actions, darknet markets still generate more than $1.7 billion in revenue in 2024. Russian-language darknet markets dominate the market due to low law enforcement risk, and several darknet markets have been shut down in early 2024.