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Owe Martin Andresen, the suspected main administrator of Dream Market, faces a federal indictment for laundering over $2 million in darknet commissions.
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German and U.S. law enforcement arrested Andresen on May 7, 2026, seizing approximately $1.7 million in gold bars and over $23,000 in cash from his residence.
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Dream Market once hosted nearly 100,000 listings and facilitated the sale of hundreds of kilograms of illegal drugs between 2013 and 2019.
A federal grand jury has indicted Martin Andresen, 49, a German citizen suspected of serving as the main administrator of Dream Market, one of the largest criminal darknet marketplaces before its 2019 shutdown.
Prosecutors allege that Andresen ran a scheme to launder millions of dollars earned through the platform’s illegal operations. German authorities arrested him on May 7, 2026, on parallel charges brought by the German government.
United States Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg said Andresen allegedly funneled commissions earned from peddling illicit drugs, hijacked personal information, and counterfeit documents through cryptocurrency wallets before converting the proceeds into gold bars.
Hertzberg added that close coordination between U.S. federal agents and German law enforcement made the arrest possible, and that Andresen will face prosecution in both countries.
Dream Market Ran One of the Darknet’s Largest Drug Operations
Dream Market launched in 2013 and quickly grew into one of the most active criminal marketplaces on the darknet. At its peak, the platform carried close to 100,000 listings.
Between 2013 and 2019, buyers and sellers on Dream Market facilitated the sale of more than 90 kilograms of heroin, 450 kilograms of cocaine, 25 kilograms of crack cocaine, 45 kilograms of methamphetamine, 13 kilograms of oxycodone, and 36 kilograms of fentanyl.
Users accessed the platform through Tor, an internet anonymizing service, and conducted all transactions in cryptocurrency to obscure the origin and destination of their payments. This model let the marketplace expand rapidly while staying ahead of early law enforcement detection.
Coordinated international efforts eventually dismantled much of Dream Market’s operation. Prosecutors secured convictions against administrators operating under the monikers “Oxymonster,” “KITT3N,” and “GOWRON.” However, the platform’s main administrator, who used the username “Speedstepper,” stayed unidentified for years.
Dormant Crypto Wallets and Gold Bars Led Investigators to Andresen
In 2019, Dream Market’s administrators announced a voluntary shutdown under growing law enforcement pressure. The platform went dark, but its cryptocurrency infrastructure stayed largely intact. Wallets holding millions of dollars in commission payments to administrators sat untouched.
Three years later, in November and December 2022, Andresen allegedly accessed those dormant wallets and transferred the funds into new, consolidated accounts. Investigators noted that only someone holding the main Dream Market’s private keys (alleged to belong to “Speedstepper”) could have initiated those transfers.
Andresen, by August 2023, had allegedly taken things further. He used a virtual currency service provider based in Atlanta, Georgia to purchase gold bars from international companies using the consolidated funds, then directed those companies to ship the bars directly to his home address in Germany.
Arrest Uncovers Millions in Gold, Cash, and Cryptocurrency
On May 7, 2026, German and U.S. law enforcement moved simultaneously. German authorities arrested Andresen and searched his residence along with two other locations.
This isn’t the only dark web platform bust in Germany recently. A hitman platform was dismantled and a suspect arrested, showing that German authorities are actively targeting criminal operations on the dark web.
The searches turned up about $1,700,000 in gold bars reportedly ordered with funds from Dream Market, more than $23,000 in cash, and details pointing to several bank accounts and cryptocurrency wallets holding an estimated $1.2 million in suspected proceeds.
A federal grand jury returned the indictment on January 13, 2026. Andresen faces six counts of international concealment money laundering and six counts of concealment money laundering, with each federal charge carrying a sentence of up to 20 years in prison. German charges carry a maximum of five years per count.
In total, prosecutors allege that Andresen laundered over $2 million between August 2023 and April 2025. The Cyber Crimes Unit of the IRS Criminal Investigation and the Task Force of the DEA Miami Counternarcotic Cyber Investigations are leading the investigation, with support from Germany’s Bundeskriminalamt Cybercrime Unit and the Zentrale Kriminalinspektion Oldenburg.
The indictment contains charges only, and Andresen remains presumed innocent until the government proves guilt beyond a reasonable doubt at trial.
