The trial of a man accused of founding and managing a platform for trafficking tons of drugs via the dark web, valued at hundreds of millions of euros, began today in Frankfurt, Germany.
At the start of the trial before the regional court in Germany's financial capital, the defendant (31 years old) made detailed confessions, admitting that he was the actual operator of the "Archetype Market" site, and added: "It was a huge mistake, and I deeply regret my actions," noting that it started as a small personal project before it rapidly evolved.
According to the indictment, the platform was considered, at the time of its closure in the summer of 2025, the largest global electronic marketplace for drug and medicine trade, having been established in November 2020. The defendant, a business management specialist born in Minden, West Germany, was arrested in June 2025 by a special unit of the Spanish national police in Barcelona.
Alongside the operation, data from the Federal Criminal Police Office of Germany indicated that extensive searches inside and outside the country were carried out, resulting in the arrest of other individuals, while the infrastructure of the servers operating in the Netherlands was seized.
Investigators estimated the total financial transactions of the site at around 330 million euros and stated that the platform was believed to have included more than 600,000 customer accounts from various countries worldwide, executing about 2.3 million purchase orders.
Investigators specified that sales included the trafficking of approximately 6.9 tons of narcotic substances, 3.2 million pills, 2.2 million tablets, and 326 liters of various drugs, including cocaine, heroin, crystal meth, fentanyl, crack, as well as cannabis products, prohibited medical drugs, and stimulants.
Investigations indicate that the defendant managed the platform with the help of several moderators, achieving personal profits estimated at around 20 million euros.
According to the German public prosecutor's office, payments were commonly made among traders in this field using the cryptocurrency Monero, as the defendant explained in his statements that the buyer would register an account and deposit money into a digital wallet before selecting the goods and entering the delivery address, with the final step being the sellers shipping the sales.
The defendant revealed that he first used drugs at the age of seventeen, but asserted that he did not sell drugs via the dark web. He added that he chose the username "ASNT" on the platform, which is an abbreviation for a German phrase meaning "unfiltered apple juice," because it was the drink he consumed at that time.