THE HAGUE, Jan 12 (Reuters) - An online marketplace called "DarkMarket" that sold illegal drugs has been taken down in an operation led by German law enforcement agencies, darkmarket 2022 European police agency Europol said on Tuesday.

The darknet market had almost 500,000 users with 2,400 sellers, Europol said in a statement.
Transactions conducted on it in cryptocurrency were worth more than 140 million euros ($170 million).

A married couple has been arrested and charged with laundering billions in Bitcoin stolen during the 2016 Bitfinex hack, as the Justice Department announced its largest financial seizure ever. 

German police have taken down one of the world's largest child porn sites with over 400,000 members and arrested four people accused of running it.The site, known as BOYSTOWN and accessible only via the so-called Darkweb, alphabay darknet url darknet market had existed since July 2019 and was used for the worldwide exchange of child porn.

LISBON, March 17 (Reuters) - The closure of nightclubs and alphabay darkweb url bars during COVID-19 lockdowns in Europe is likely behind a significant drop in the use of party drug MDMA last year but consumption of other substances such as cocaine and cannabis kept rising, an EU study said on Thursday. Conducted by the Lisbon-based European Union drugs agency (EMCDDA), a study of wastewater from nearly 45 million people in 75 European cities revealed that the use of most drugs, except MDMA, increased last year.