Prison for Swedes behind large drug site

On the surface, Archetyp looked like a serious e-commerce site with search functions, product listings and user profiles.

But what was sold was cannabis, cocaine, LSD and other drugs - in large amounts.

- It actually works like Blocket or Tradera and other legal sites. You register seller and buyer accounts and then trade back and forth but with cryptocurrency, says Björn Eriksson, criminal inspector at the National IT Crime Centre.

- Then it happens on the darknet, which is more anonymous and harder to access. But it works pretty much the same way.

The Gothenburg district court is now sentencing several men who have been involved or active on the site in various ways. Among other things, three men who, according to the indictment, were moderators on Archetyp are being sentenced.

The longest sentence is given to a man in his 40s, who is sentenced to eight years and three months in prison for, among other things, aiding and abetting an extremely serious drug crime and a serious child pornography crime.

Two more men are sentenced to prison for aiding and abetting a particularly serious drug crime. The district court sentences them to three and a half years and one year in prison, respectively.

In the verdict, three other men are also sentenced for various drug offences.

When authorities cracked down on the site in 2025, it had over 600,000 users, 3,000 sellers and 17,000 ads. In total, it is estimated that at least 250 million euros (corresponding to roughly 2.7 billion kroner) have been sold.

Much of the profit is deemed to have ended up with the criminal gangs.

According to Björn Eriksson, the number of Swedes on Archetyp increased a few years ago when Flugsvamp 3.0 – in turn a successor to Flugsvamp 2.0 – was shut down.

Correspondingly, both sellers and buyers have moved on even after Archetyp, he notes.

Accessing digital crime is both complicated and time-consuming. National Police Chief Petra Lundh therefore called for new legislation this summer to give the police increased digital powers.

This could, for example, involve blocking phone systems used for fraudulent calls or preventing the use of a certain account or platform.

- Nobody wants the digital world to be a free zone where criminals can commit crimes risk-free. Therefore, we need the same powers in the digital world as in the physical world, says Björn Eriksson.