The shutdown of DarkMarket in January 2021 was billed by triumphant investigators as the world’s largest illegal marketplace bust. More than 2,400 drug dealers and half a million customers used the dark web site to do business, pushing 4,600 Bitcoin and 12,800 Monero through the marketplace’s servers, amounts of crypto then worth in excess of €140 million. Until it was forcibly closed, DarkMarket racked up north of 320,000 transactions.

The Germany-led operation that brought its trading days to a close saw a pronounced shift in police tactics, from targeting marketplace administrators to going after vendors directly. It saw Europol coordinating with the DEA, FBI, IRS, and the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) to shut the site and hunt down its sellers. 

That’s how James Edmans, 32, from Devon—one of Britain’s biggest dark web mushroom dealers—ended up on the list. From a suburban bungalow in Plymstock, he made more than £500,000 selling home-cultivated Koh Samui Thailand mushrooms and Class B drugs online. Until August 2025, when he was sentenced to six years and nine months for producing and supplying Class A and B drugs, plus four years for laundering the proceeds of crime.

It might not have been quite so difficult for Edmans to swallow had he been able to drive. His NHS nurse mum, Kim, also ended up with a suspended 20-month jail term for ferrying him to the Post Office and letting him use the bungalow as his HQ.

Edmans didn’t shut up shop when DarkMarket shut down. Assuming he was safe, he began selling through other markets, mailing up to ten parcels at a time. Police say he even used specially-designed prosthetic gloves that looked like hands to conceal his fingerprints.

Richard Foster, a former Hampshire Police investigator who now heads the cybercrime consultancy, Brainstorm Security, told VICE that the prosthetic hands tactic was unusual. “It was a clever move I haven’t seen before. He avoided obvious options like normal gloves or surgical gloves, which would look suspicious in summer. Prosthetic gloves were less likely to draw attention.”

Unlike many dark web vendors who split their operations between sites to reduce risk, Edmans ran his business under one roof. Aside from the driving, he managed all aspects of the venture himself, from the cultivation and packaging through to the back-end that powered SweetGreenUK.

Cops later released a video of Edmans stepping out of his mum’s bungalow for another night-time Post Office run. When plain-clothes officers moved in, he collapsed on the floor.

“Holy shit,” he muttered, “I’m fucked.” 

He wasn’t wrong.

In all, investigators traced more than 5,000 individual sales back to Edmans, worth more than £500,000. He’d shipped parcels across Britain, washing his profits through crypto wallets before cashing out in sterling.

“The estimated total operation was valued at £1.2 million, with £303,000 in verified Bitcoin sales from 2019 to 2023, and an estimated production of 65 kg—or 143 pounds—of mushrooms over seven years, all from his mother’s home,” Foster confirms.

He added that the police probably pieced the case together by silently watching Edmans’ sales, slowly tracing his crypto, and then tailing him in the real world until they finally caught him on his way to the post box.

Customers are also at risk, Foster warns. Police often seize order logs, shipping labels, and unencrypted buyer data during raids.

In a linked case, another Devon dealer, Cai Whitmarsh-Williams—who was just 19 at the time of his arrest—was caught with mushrooms for sale and £25,000 in cash under his bed. He admitted drug supply offenses and was sentenced at Exeter Crown Court on September 10, 2025, receiving a suspended sentence.

It’s clear that the DarkMarket takedown is still paying dividends for law enforcement nearly three years later. But for dealers and customers alike, it’s a reminder that dark web anonymity is fragile and nothing ever really disappears.

@drrebeccatidy