If you’re going to run one of the world’s largest dark web drug marketplace, it’s probably a good idea not to have laundered loot delivered to your front door.
That, according to US and German prosecutors, is what 49-year-old Owe Martin Andresen did – and it has helped land him in custody where he is facing money laundering charges on both sides of the Atlantic.
Andresen was arrested at his home on 7 May 2026 by German police. Prosecutors allege he is “Speedstepper” – the suspected main administrator of the notorious Dream Market dark web marketplace that operated from 2013 until its abrupt closure in 2019.
A US Department of Justice press release describes Dream Market as having been one of the largest illicit marketplaces on the dark web, playing host to almost 100,000 listings at any one time.
In its six-year existence, US authorities claim that Dream Market facilitated the sale of more than 90kg of heroin, 450kg of cocaine, 25kg of crack cocaine, 45kg of methamphetamine, 13kg of oxycodone, and 36kg of fentanyl. But in addition to drugs, it also did a brisk trade in stolen data, counterfeit identity documents, and other criminal material.
In the past, Dream Market’s lower-ranking administrators have been apprehended.
For instance, Frenchman Gal Vallerius (known on the site as “Oxymonster”) was arrested in 2017 after flying to the United States to compete in the World Beard and Mustache Championships (No, I’m not making this up). He was subsequently sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Other admins who used the online handles “KITT3N” and “GOWRON” have also been convicted.
But Speedtstepper – the person supposedly at the top of the Dream Market operation – has remained out of reach of the authorities, years after the site shut down in 2019, citing the pressure from law enforcement.
Dream Market’s cryptocurrency wallets, holding millions of dollars worth in commission payments, went dormant after the site’s closure. But in November and December 2022, someone who had access to Dream Market’s original private keys began to move funds around.
Prosecutors allege that the man who moved the funds was Andresen. They claim that he consolidated the contents of the old Dream Market wallets into new ones, and then, in August 2023, used an Atlanta-based cryptocurrency service to convert the proceeds into gold bars purchased from international dealers.
And, according to the indictment, those gold bars were shipped directly to Andresen’s home address in Germany.
If the claims of prosecutors are true, it was a massive error by the man suspected of being the Dream Market kingpin.
In all, prosecutors say that Andresen laundered more than US $2 million between August 2023 and April 2025.
German police searching Andresen’s resident and two other locations earlier this month are reported to have seized approximately US $1.7 million in gold bars, over $23,000 in cash, and identified bank accounts and crypto wallets containing approximately US $1.2 million more.
Andresen is currently facing charges in both the United States and Germany, and is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
If prosecutors are able to convince the court that Andresen is guilty, he potentially faces a substantial prison sentence – long enough for anyone to wonder if sending gold bars to their own front door is really such a wise move.
