A website that made millions of pounds from the sale of illegal drugs has been infiltrated by Met Police officers in their latest major operation to crack down on cybercrime.
In June 2025, the Met’s Cyber Crime Unit became aware of AEGIS Marketplace, a site where individual sellers could market drugs for sale to users who could make purchases using cryptocurrency.
By March 2026, the website had 30 active sellers and was estimated to have generated 10,000 drug sales in ten months, leading to an estimated annual turnover of almost £2 million.
Officers managed to infiltrate the site, retrieving server data that led to the identification of administrators, sellers and customers.
Now, rather than seeing drugs for sale, anyone trying to access the site is met with a banner announcing ‘this website has been seized’.
Further investigative work is now underway to bring prosecutions against those found to have used the site to commit offences.
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.”
The original announcement can be found here.
