United States Officially Indicts Founder of Darknet Marketplace Nemesis

A U.S. federal grand jury indicted 36-year-old Iranian national Behrouz Parsarad on April 29, 2025, accusing him of creating and operating Nemesis, a darknet marketplace. Launched in 2021, the platform had 150,000 users and offered “drugs, stolen financial information, fraudulent identity documents, counterfeit currency, and malware,” according to the indictment. The suspect is still on the run.

In March 2024, a joint judicial and law enforcement operation by the United States, Germany, and Lithuania led to the takedown of Nemesis and the seizure of its servers and infrastructure. According to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the marketplace “facilitated the sale of nearly $30 million worth of drugs.”

“Nemesis Market, through the darknet, was a hub of borderless criminal activity fueling not only the drug epidemic, but also a wide range of illegal acts that threaten our citizens and destroy our communities,” said Charles Johnston, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI in Cleveland.

According to U.S. authorities, Behrouz Parsarad allegedly had full control over the marketplace and all of its cryptocurrency wallets. He reportedly attempted to relaunch the platform after its shutdown and faces a potential life sentence.