A website that made millions of pounds from the sale of illegal drugs has been seized following a police operation.
The site, known as AEGIS Marketplace, was shut down by the Metropolitan Police in their latest major operation to crack down on cybercrime.
The Met’s cyber crime unit found the site, where individual sellers could market drugs for sale to users who could make purchases using cryptocurrency, to have generated an estimated annual turnover of almost £2 million from illegal drug sales.
The Met’s Cyber Crime Unit became aware of AEGIS Marketplace in June 2025, and by March the website had 30 active sellers and was estimated to have generated 10,000 drug sales in ten months.
Officers have now successfully infiltrated the site and obtained server data that helped identify administrators, sellers and customers.
Further investigative work is now underway to bring prosecutions against those found to have used the site to commit offences.
Anyone who now tries to access the site will be met with a banner announcing “this website has been seized”.
Head of Economic and Cyber Crime at the Metropolitan Police, Will Lyne, said: “The infiltration of this illegal marketplace is evidence of our dedication to unravelling complex digital platforms and disrupting criminal networks.
“It’s clear that some offenders still think they can hide from justice by committing crime on the dark web. Our message to those people is think again.
“We are determined that there will be no safe spaces, including online, where the buying and selling of drugs and other illegal items goes undetected and unpunished.”
