Content
“AlphaBay sold drugs, guns and hacking tools online — until a sting operation shut it down”. One of the big ideas that “Tracers in the Dark” really drills into the reader is that it’s not just that Bitcoin actually isn’t anonymous. But it’s also important to remember that law enforcement investigations take time. As it turned out, that anonymous tipster who cold-emailed a DEA agent in Fresno about the identity of AlphaBay’s founder had the right man. But the investigators still had to pull all the threads and fingerprints left on the blockchain and the internet before going after Cazes. The Hansa takeover-takedown combo resulted in several arrests all over the world, and — more importantly — spooked the whole dark web illegal markets ecosystem, showing that even the biggest markets could be a sting operation run by the cops.
Deep web marketplaces are online marketplaces where people can buy and sell illicit goods and services under the protection of the anonymity of the dark web. The goods and services on offer range from leaked credit card details, exploit kits, and hackers for hire, to advertisements for hitmen services. If that AlphaGuard feature doesn’t sound aspirational enough, DeSnake says he’s also in the early stages of a long-term plan to implement a fully decentralized marketplace system, essentially a BitTorrent to the current dark web markets’ Napster.
Dark Web Social Security Number
When AlphaBay first reappeared, Gray and other dark web analysts and users expressed suspicion that DeSnake might be compromised by law enforcement. In early July, multiple computer servers used by the AlphaBay website were seized worldwide, and the site’s creator and administrator—a 25-year-old Canadian citizen living in Thailand—was arrested. AlphaBay operated for more than two years and had transactions exceeding $1 billion in Bitcoin and other digital currencies. The site, which operated on the anonymous Tor network, was a major source of heroin and fentanyl, and sales originating from AlphaBay have been linked to multiple overdose deaths in the United States. The rules of the marketplace have been slightly amended since the previous iteration of AlphaBay and now include rules against posts dealing with fentanyl, COVID-19 vaccines, ransomware, and any activity related to Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, and Kyrgyzstan. Flashpoint analysts note that threat actors based in the countries of the former Soviet Union avoid targeting those countries, as to not draw attention of domestic law enforcement.
When WIRED reached out to Justice Department officials, including one who participated in the original investigation of AlphaBay that resulted in its 2017 takedown, they either didn’t respond or declined to comment. Of course, everything DeSnake told WIRED may itself be misdirection designed to help him further evade those agencies. To avoid the risk of his PC being grabbed while he’s logged in to AlphaBay, DeSnake says he also shuts it down entirely every time he steps away from it, even to take a bathroom break. “Biggest issue in that regard is the human needs … I would say that is the biggest inconvenience,” DeSnake writes. “You make sacrifices. Though once you get used to it, it becomes second nature.”
How To Access Dark Web Using Tor
Assets acquired through proceeds were held in a variety of accounts directly linked to Cazes, his wife and companies they owned in Thailand , as well as directly held personal accounts in Liechtenstein, Cyprus, Switzerland and Antigua. The servers contained multiple constantly open hot cryptocurrency wallets. When Cazes was arrested, he was logged into his laptop performing an administrative reboot on an AlphaBay server in direct response to a law-enforcement-created artificial system failure; furthermore, encryption was wholly absent on that laptop.
The contract system allows users to make engagements and agree to provide services in the future, according to the terms of the contract. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California filed a civil forfeiture complaint against Alexandre Cazes and his wife’s assets located throughout the world, including in Thailand, Cyprus, Lichtenstein, and Antigua & Barbuda. Cazes and his wife amassed numerous high value assets, including luxury vehicles, residences and a hotel in Thailand. Cazes also possessed millions of dollars in cryptocurrency, which has been seized by the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration . Authored by Dexter Shin McAfee’s Mobile Research Team introduced a new Android malware targeting Instagram users who… “It was like seeing a ghost,” one of the agents remembers thinking, as some of his colleagues panicked.
How To Search The Dark Web
Whether or not the revamped AlphaBay gains the clout among criminals that its predecessor enjoyed remains to be seen. The person who apparently boasted that AlphaBay is back, who goes by the alias DeSnake, has street credibility among crooks. DeSnake was one of the original moderators of AlphaBay along with Cazes, who committed suicide while imprisoned in Thailand.
- The marketplace was offline last week, when Dread and its sister services were under heavy DDoS and inaccessible.
- Kingdom Market is a newer darknet market that has been around since April 2021 but was only recently vetted for listing on Dread, the pre-eminent forum for markets on the dark web.
- In July of 2017, a global law enforcement sting known as Operation Bayonet took down AlphaBay’s sprawling narcotics-and-cybercrime bazaar, seizing the site’s central server in Lithuania and arresting its creator, Alexandre Cazes, outside his home in Bangkok.
- Mr. Cazes had help from about 10 deputies, who administered the site and resolved disputes, the documents said.
Upon his initial arrest, reports suggested he faced up to 20 years for his involvement in the marketplace. The authorities were not the only ones to identify and/or attempt to uncover the key players at AlphaBay Market. In the spring of 2017, the Alpha Organization paid an extortionist threatening to dox alpha02 and a couple of his moderators at least $45,000 USD, although the veracity of the information the extortionist had has not been verified.
A kind of practical paranoia permeated DeSnake’s messages to WIRED, both on a personal level and in his plans for AlphaBay’s revamped technical protections. AlphaBay’s dark web site is now accessible not only via Tor, like the original AlphaBay, but also I2P, a less popular anonymity system that DeSnake encourages users to switch to. He repeatedly described his wariness that Tor may be vulnerable to surveillance, though he provided no evidence. In an extended chat interview, DeSnake tells WIRED how he walked away unscathed from the takedown of AlphaBay, why he has resurfaced now, and what his plans are for the resurrected, once-dominant online black market. He communicated with WIRED via encrypted text messages, from a frequently changing series of pseudonymous accounts, after proving his identity by signing a public message with DeSnake’s original PGP key, which multiple security researchers verified. After AlphaBay disappeared from the darknet on July 5, users took to online message boards in a panic, wondering if administrators had absconded with their cryptocurrency as part of some type of “exit scam.”
Cocorico Market
The leader in news and information on cryptocurrency, digital assets and the future of money, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups. As part of their compensation, certain CoinDesk employees, including editorial employees, may receive exposure to DCG equity in the form of stock appreciation rights, which vest over a multi-year period. CoinDesk journalists are not allowed to purchase stock outright in DCG. Ohio resident Larry Dean Harmon, 36, has been charged with laundering more than $300 million in bitcoin for darknet marketplace AlphaBay.