Hydra Market: the financial nexus that linked Russia to the Mexican cartels

The war between Russia and Ukraine in eastern Europe, more than 11,000 kilometers away from Mexico, has spread to the bowels of organized crime, specifically in the finances of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and the Sinaloa Cartel.

On Tuesday, April 5, the German justice announced that the “largest” platform for selling the dark web, called “Hydra Market”, which has been operating in Russian since 2015, was dismantled and bitcoins worth more than 25 million dollars were seized.

Investigators suspect that this platform, with around 17 million customers, was used for criminal and money-laundering activities, through more than 19,000 active accounts.

Sources from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) revealed to journalist Óscar Balderas that among the most active users were twelve accounts linked to cartels led by Ismael el Mayo Zambada and Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, el Mencho.

Through this platform, the two most important cartels in Mexico have been dedicated for several years to the technique identified by the UN as smufring, through which criminals make various purchases of cryptocurrencies less than USD 7,500, with which they ensure the anonymity of those who make them not exceed the limit allowed by the Mexican authorities for each operation.

“The use of bitcoin to launder money is on the rise, particularly among drug gangs such as the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel, according to authorities in Mexico and the United States. Mexican cartels are believed to launder an estimated $25 billion a year in Mexico alone,” the UN announced in its drug control report for 2021.

“To stay below the threshold of banking transactions that generate red flags, which is $7500, criminals often divide their illicit cash into small amounts and deposit them into multiple bank accounts, a technique known as' smurfing ',” the report read.

“Hydra Market” was one of the largest sites for this type of operation. The Russian-language device accessible through the Tor network was mostly used for drug trade, stolen data and false documents.

The Mexican government has also identified how to launder money with cryptocurrencies by Mexican cartels, so in 2018 a law was implemented that required all digital currency buying platforms to report transfers exceeding 56,000 pesos, equivalent to USD 2,830.

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