Sales on a Russian-language Dark Web marketplace known as Hydra have skyrocketed in the past four years—with more than $1.4 billion in transactions in 2020, up from less than $10 million in 2016—likely due to its securing tacit consent of Russian officials, new research shows. Run by a loose confederation of about a dozen operators, Hydra acts as a forum for sellers of narcotics and illegal services in Russia and nine other former Soviet states, according to the report from Flashpoint and cryptocurrency analyst firm Chainalysis.

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