His choice for AlphaBay to use only Monero, rather than Bitcoin, may make the sort of blockchain analysis that contributed to the original site’s takedown far more difficult. And he claims to have built complex technical protections that include redundant infrastructure in multiple countries, along with a system called AlphaGuard that’s designed to automatically relaunch the site on new servers in the case of a bust. “We will be back and running within a few days and without a cent lost,” DeSnake says. After nearly a year back online, though, DeSnake says he feels “vindicated,” given that few if any undercover operations have lasted that long.
Unsurprisingly, such markets remain top targets for takedowns by law enforcement officials. Many get infiltrated by police, so they can identify not just administrators and moderators, but also top buyers and sellers. AlphaBay’s Monero-only policy does not seem to have deterred or hindered buyers and vendors from operating in the marketplace, which most popularly boasts drug offerings. Cannabis, stimulants, and psychedelics hold the current top three spots, and account for the majority of the current 33,000 drug-related listings. However, the threat actor did not explicitly name the software vendor, speculating that the stolen source codes were related to EMR/HER systems. As part of the site’s relaunch, multiple new features have been advertised and new rules announced.
Illegal Dark Web
Sub-communities follow website rules and can add additional rules/operating structures by their respective ‘community manager’. The long-term vision for such communities from the start when VXcode was launched, was to be sustainable enough that in the event of a raid/seizure it can recover. Large sub-communities can even setup their own dedicated forums hosted by members or community managers while maintaining presence on AlphaBay Forum. That disregard made me make the decision that alpha02 deserves to be honoured better even as a human and no one was ready or going to do it so fuck it here I am doing this. Achieving the Decentralized Market Network project for the entire DNM community is what I have aimed for and that is how AlphaBay will live on forever and the alpha02 legacy honoured.
In May 2015, the site announced an integrated digital contracts and escrow system. The contract system allows users to make engagements and agree to provide services in the future, according to the terms of the contract. In a further show of there being no honour amongst thieves, the HTML source of the phishing site appears to have been copied from a previous lookalike site using the onion-market.co domain name. This domain name has since been repossessed by its registrar, GoDaddy, which is typical of domains that have been paid for with fraudulent funds or subjected to chargebacks. Also unlike Silk Road, there is no indication that the law enforcement took down the AlphaBay marketplace.
Alphabay Market Tor
If a dark net market’s operators decide to take off with the bitcoins that are being held in escrow, users have no recourse. AlphaBay boasts with unmatched reputation and good-standing within the darknet community. We have always been transparent, professional and fair to every party involved that is why we were the preferred place of business by hundreds of thousands of buyers and vendors.
Feel free to search us up on the Internet like Wikipedia or news websites for further information/history. To use social login you have to agree with the storage and handling of your data by this website. AlphaBay’s admin disappeared, the site is potentially exit scamming.
Cocorico Market
Others are also doing jail time over AlphaBay, including moderator Bryan Connor Herrell, a Colorado resident who last year pleaded guilty to a federal racketeering charge and received an 11-year prison sentence. Authorities said he’d moderated about 20,000 disputes on the site. The seizure and civil forfeiture of three former drug houses in Rutland, Vermont is helping to restore a community hit hard by the opioid epidemic. The police have reportedly seized a total of €400,000, including nearly €100,000 in cash that was discovered hidden behind a spare tire in a garage during the arrest. Sign up for a free trialand see how Flashpoint can provide you with the actionable intelligence your team needs to identify and respond to cyber and physical threats targeting your organization. PilotFish Technology develops middleware that enables the integration of disparate systems and provides comprehensive healthcare solutions that collect patient data and manage operations with smart medical devices, supporting various HL7 specific features.
- “Dark Web drug marketplace AlphaBay was shut down by law enforcement”.
- AlphaBay only accepts Monero, has strict product restrictions, and doesn’t allow people from certain countries to use it.
- A word map of the most popular listings on AlphaBay over the course of the last year.
In addition, DeSnake claims AlphaBay has been rebuilt “from the ground up,” runs on bulletproof servers and offers a highly automated dispute-resolution system. Like many other markets, the site also offers a highly automated escrow service designed to combat nonfulfillment, which offers protections for buyers and sellers. Some have confirmed that whoever posted that is using legitimate credentials, according to Robinson, who’s posted extracts of these attestations. The operation to shut down AlphaBay was led by the FBI and involved law enforcement authorities in Thailand, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Canada, the United Kingdom, and France, along with Europol. It is expected that hundreds of new investigations will be generated worldwide as a result of the takedowns. U.S. law enforcement also worked with numerous foreign partners to freeze and preserve millions of dollars in cryptocurrency representing the proceeds of AlphaBay’s illegal activities.
See how Netcraft can provide the right service for your use case. Sign up for free and start receiving your daily dose of cybersecurity news, insights and tips. However, users no need to worry—at least right now when nothing is confirmed, and the timing of the two incidents—site downtime and Bitcoin withdrawals—may be just coincidental. Although the website sometimes goes down for maintenance, customers are speculating that the admins have stolen all their Bitcoins for good measure, when heard no words from the site’s admins on the downtime. The operation included the arrest on July 5 of suspected AlphaBay founder Alexandre Cazes, a Canadian citizen arrested on behalf of the United States in Thailand.
Ased on law enforcement’s investigation of AlphaBay, authorities believe the site was also used to launder hundreds of millions of dollars deriving from illegal transactions on the website. “Dark Web drug marketplace AlphaBay was shut down by law enforcement”. The phishing site used in this attack was discovered on Thursday and is still operating at the time of writing.