US Cracks Down on Nemesis Founder’s $1.6M Crypto Trail

According to a March 4 statement from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), Parsarad created the Nemesis marketplace in 2021, allowing illegal trade in drugs, fake documents, hacking tools, and other criminal services.

Alongside Parsarad himself, the sanctions extend to multiple cryptocurrency accounts connected to him, specifically 44 Bitcoin

BTC

$83,322.17

and five Monero

XMR

$215.60

wallets.

Chainalysis, a blockchain intelligence agency, reported these wallets collectively received over $850,000 between July 2022 and March 2024. Due to the increase in cryptocurrency values during this period, Parsarad’s total transfers exceeded $1.6 million.

Most of Parsarad’s cryptocurrency transactions involved Nemesis directly, although Chainalysis revealed that he also sent about $12,000 to other darknet sites, including ASAP Market, Next Generation, and Incognito Market.

Before authorities from the US, Germany, and Lithuania seized Nemesis’s servers in March 2024, the platform hosted roughly 30,000 users and around 1,000 active sellers. OFAC described the site as having built-in features designed to facilitate money laundering.

Bradley T. Smith, Acting Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, stated that Parsarad is actively attempting to relaunch the Nemesis marketplace.

Parsarad is accused not only of operating the marketplace but also of laundering digital currency transactions for criminals who used Nemesis. With the sanctions now in place, US individuals and businesses are prohibited from engaging in any transactions with Parsarad or companies majority-owned by him.

Recently, US authorities detained Aleksei Andriunin, the founder of Gotbit. What happened? Read the full story.