US authorities have sanctioned the operator of a shuttered on-line darknet market, together with his crypto addresses, which lately profited from Bitcoin value fluctuations.
Iran-based Behrouz Parsarad established the darknet market Nemesis in 2021 and used it to facilitate the sale of medicine, false identification paperwork, professional hacking resources, and a wide range of different illicit providers for cybercriminals, the US Workplace of International Belongings Management (OFAC) said in a March 4 assertion.
Below the sanctions, US residents at the moment are blocked from coping with Parsarad and any corporations the place he owns greater than a 50% stake.
A US, German-Lithuanian legislation enforcement operation shut down Nemesis in 2024. Supply: Chainalysis
Blockchain analytics agency Chainalysis said the sanctioned property contains 44 Bitcoin (BTC) addresses and 5 Monero (XMR) addresses, which, between July 2022 and March 2024, obtained greater than $850,000.
The overall quantity of cryptocurrency despatched by Parsarad exceeds $1.6 million, which Chainalysis attributed to cost appreciation.
Most of Parsarad’s transaction quantity is with Nemesis, however he additionally despatched over $12,000 to a number of different darknet marketplaces, akin to ASAP Market, Incognito Market and Subsequent Technology, and had “oblique publicity to mixers,” in response to the blockchain analytics agency.
Parsarad interacted onchain with a number of different darknet marketplaces. Supply: Chainalysis
OFAC says that earlier than a US German-Lithuanian legislation enforcement operation confiscated its servers in March 2024, {the marketplace} had 30,000 lively customers and 1,000 distributors and was designed with built-in money laundering features.
“Along with offering criminals with a platform to conduct transactions, Parsarad laundered digital currencies for narcotics traffickers and cybercriminals lively on Nemesis,” OFAC stated.
The federal government company estimates Parsarad pocketed “hundreds of thousands of {dollars} over the course of {the marketplace}’s existence.”
Performing Below Secretary for Terrorism and Monetary Intelligence Bradley T. Smith stated Parsarad additionally “continues to attempt to re-establish” the operation.
Darknet marketplaces nonetheless booming regardless of enforcement actions
Darknet marketplaces generated over $1.7 billion in income in 2024, solely a slight increase from the previous yr, according to blockchain intelligence agency TRM Labs 2025 Crypto Crime Report.
TRM Labs stated Russian-language darknet markets continued to dominate the ecosystem, primarily as a consequence of Russian authorities’ “low danger of enforcement motion.”
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On the similar time, Western darknet marketplaces struggled beneath elevated enforcement and operational instability. In a March 4 weblog submit, TRM Labs said that in early 2024, a number of major exit scams occurred within the Western darknet market scene.
“Bohemia Market and Cannabia Market disappeared in January beneath suspicious circumstances, later revealed by Dutch authorities to be a part of an ongoing investigation,” TRM Labs stated.
In March, Incognito Market collapsed following a possible exit scam. TRM Labs says its administrator, often known as “Pharoah,” tried to extort customers earlier than shutting down {the marketplace}.
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