The US Treasury Department has imposed sanctions on the Hydra darknet market and the Garantex cryptocurrency exchange.

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has identified more than 100 crypto addresses associated with illegal transactions.

The investigation revealed that approximately $8 million in ransomware revenues went through Hydra accounts, including Ryuk, Sodinokibi, and Conti.

Analysis of known Garantex transactions showed that transactions exceeding $100 million were associated with illegal assets and darknet marketplaces. Of these, about $6 million came from the Russian hacker group Conti and about $2.6 million from Hydra.

OFAC has blocked all properties of Hydra and Garantex within the US borders. Residents and citizens of the country are prohibited from working with platforms.

The investigation builds on recent sanctions against cryptocurrency exchanges Suex and Chatex, which operate from the Federation Tower in Moscow, such as Garantex.

The actions of the US authorities are also aimed at avoiding possible Russian sanctions with the help of cryptocurrencies.

“This is a signal to criminals that they cannot hide on the dark web, neither in Russia nor anywhere else in the world,” said US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

Previously, it was learned that the German police seized the Hydra servers and confiscated 543 BTC.

At the beginning of March 2022, exchange operator Garantex revoked Estonia’s license to work with virtual currencies after discovering a number of systemic violations in its activities.