Finland takes down illegal dark web marketplace Sipulitie

The Finnish Customs office seized multiple servers of Sipulitie, an illegal marketplace that was hosted on the dark web where people could buy their drugs illegally and anonymously.

Sipulitie, a notorious platform that facilitated the sale of narcotics, catered both Finnish and English-speaking users. It was launched in early 2023 as a hidden service on the Tor network, allowing illegal transactions to be conducted anonymously.

During the operation, the Finnish Customs, in collaboration with the Swedish Police, Europol and Bitdefender, seized the marketplace’s servers and confiscated its domain name. Instead of the marketplace visitors get to see a splash page, telling them the domain has been seized by the authorities.

Sipulitie was a relatively small, but successful operation. The administrator of the site had a turnover of approximately € 1.3 million.

According to Hannu Sinkkonen, Director of Enforcement at the Finnish Customs, cooperation between national and international authorities was key to the success.

“Over the years we at Finnish Customs have intervened effectively using many different methods in the criminal activities taking place on the dark web. Seamless cooperation between authorities at both the national and international level plays a crucial role in combating online crime,” he said in a statement.

Alexandru Cătălin Coșoi, Chief Security Strategist at Bitdefender, agrees with his colleague and adds: “This operation exemplifies the power of collaboration between the public and private security sector in dismantling illegal online activities, in this case, markets that sold large amounts of narcotics. It also serves a message to criminals who believe the dark web covers their actions and guarantees their anonymity. If they become the target of an international effort, they can’t hide.”

The predecessor of Sipulitie was called Supilimarket and has been around since April 2019. It was responsible for the illegal sale of € 2 million in narcotics and doping substances. The Finnish Customs, Polish authorities and Bitdefender took this marketplace down in December 2020. Out of its ashes arose its successor, Sipulitie.

In addition to the closure of Sipulitie, the Finnish Customs office has also successfully dismantled the chat-based sales website Tsätti, which was another venture by the same administrator.

The investigation into Supilitie and related platforms is still ongoing. Key persons responsible for the operation have already been identified, including supporting members, buyers and sellers.