The United States has announced sanctions on Behrouz Parsarad, the founder of the Nemesis marketplace. According to reports, about 49 wallets belonging to the founder were blacklisted. The sanctions are coming after the platform was shut down last year.
In the report released by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the nemesis darknet marketplace announced the sanctions, noting about $30 million in illicit drugs between 2021 and 2024. During the period, the website had 30,000 active users and 1,000 vendors.
United States OFAC sanctions 49 wallets linked to Parsarad
In addition to its usual service, the website provided professional hacking services and the sale of false identification documents to users. The founder also used the platform to launder funds for bad actors. According to the OFAC, the founder, who hailed from Tehran, collected fees running into millions from users during the period that the activities were being carried out.
“Parsarad sought to build — and continues to try to re-establish — a safe haven to facilitate the production, sale, and shipment of illegal narcotics like fentanyl and other synthetic opioids,” Acting Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Bradley T. Smith said.
According to Chainalysis, the 44 Bitcoin wallets seized from the founder received about $850,000, sending more than $1.6 million, taking advantage of the surge in the price of Bitcoin. Parsarad also had five Monero wallets. Nemesis was closed in March 2024 through a joint effort between the United States, German, and Lithuanian law enforcement.
OFAC also announced that it has taken measures against several actions to combat drug trafficking via the darknet. It sanctioned Hydra and Genesis marketplaces in April 2022 and April 2023, respectively. Crypto exchange Bizlato, which laundered more than $700 million in crypto for Hydra users, while Genesis acted as a third-party payment processor.
The first darknet marketplace was Silk Road, established in 2011 by Ross Ulbricht and closed down in 2013. The U.S. government seized 174,000 BTC in that case and still holds them. Ulbricht received two life sentences in prison in that case, but U.S. President Donald Trump pardoned him this year.