The large darknet market Sipulimarket has been closed and its assets have been confiscated by Finnish customs in cooperation with Europol and the Polish police.
Europol and the Finnish Customs Service said last week that they “closed the darknet market Sipulimarket and confiscated all its content.” The operation was carried out in close cooperation with the Polish Police Office in Wroclaw, Europol’s European Cybercrime Center and Eurojust.
“The Finnish Customs confiscated the web server and content of the Silpulimarket trading site, and also confiscated BTC.”
The website now displays a message that reads: “This service has been closed by the Finnish Customs in conjunction with the Cybercrime Directorate of the Police Department in Wroclaw with the support of Europol and Eurojust on cumulative drug-related crimes.”
Sipulimarket’s web server has been running on the Tor network since 2019, according to the authorities. The marketplace sold “a significant amount of drugs and other illegal goods”. That being said, Sipulimarket was the only Finnish-language trading site to sell drugs on the Tor network after the Valhalla marketplace was closed by the Finnish Customs in spring 2019.
The amount of BTC confiscated was not disclosed. According to the press release, “the preliminary investigation is still ongoing.” At this stage, the Finnish Customs and international cooperation partners will not provide more information on this matter.
Recall that back in February 2018, Finland determined the rules for storing and selling confiscated bitcoins. In the spring of this year, the Finnish Customs Service was resolving the issue of confiscated BTC worth $ 15 million at that time. The authorities feared that if sold, they could end up in the hands of criminals.
