An international law enforcement operation arrested one of the three admins of the dual darknet market 'Bohemia/Cannabia.' It hosted ads for drug sales and DDoS attacks.
On June 27, 2024, they arrested the man at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam. They seized his devices, which had incriminating data and Bitcoin wallet access keys.
A second administrator of Bohemia/Cannabia was arrested in Ireland in the context of the same operation, which leveraged data from the joint international investigation.
The Dutch police and partners in Ireland, the UK, and the US seized over 8 million euros ($8.77M) in cryptocurrency from the two admins.
Politie says it investigated a darknet platform from late 2022 until its shutdown at the end of 2023. The site had service disruptions and a feud with a "rogue developer" who allegedly caused the outages.
When the admins "exit scammed" and split the money users had deposited to the platform, the police traced the amounts and identified the administrators.
The darknet market also had most of its server infrastructure in the country, which is now under the police's control.
At its peak, in September 2023, Bohemia/Cannabia generated over 12 million Euros ($13.1M) in revenue. The marketplace reportedly added 82,000 advertisements daily and facilitated 67,000 transactions every month.
It is estimated that the administrators have made a profit of about 5 million Euros ($5.47M) from the operation of the darknet market.
The police's analysis shows that sellers in the Netherlands did at least 14,000 transactions worth 1.7 million euros ($1.86M).
Many of those members were previously identified and arrested, and the police expect that more arrests will follow as more evidence is unearthed from the seized infrastructure.
The admin arrested by the Dutch police earlier this year has appeared before the Rotterdam court today, but the litigation process is still in its early pre-trial phases.