AlphaBay darknet market moderator sentenced to 11 years in Jail

At the time of its demise in July 2017, AlphaBay had over 400,000 users. For more context, yesterday Dutch Police shared that following the shutdown of AlphaBay, Hansa saw an eight-fold increase in daily active vendors – from 1,000 to 8,000. We are here to help Brandefense customers to protect their brands and reputations against cyber threats.

  • What do you think about the so-called return of Alphabay and the veracity of the Desnake PGP key?
  • This makes it valuable for both conventional crime and cybercrime actors.
  • It is unheard of that a darknet service would decline and discourage donations.
  • If you want to grow in your business or wish to find a new business or an idea to make money, this is the place for you.
  • So in case you happen to frequent Dream for your illegal merch needs, I’d trust the messenger this time around – at least out of caution.

The takedown of AlphaBay—and another prominent site on the Darknet known as Hansa Market—required months of planning among law enforcement agencies around the world and was one of the most sophisticated coordinated takedowns to date in the fight against online criminal activity. AlphaBay’s creator and administrator, Alexandre Cazes—who went by the names Alpha02 and Admin online—was arrested by Thai authorities on behalf of the U.S. on July 5, 2017. A week later, Cazes apparently took his own life while in custody in Thailand. The operation to seize AlphaBay’s servers was led by the FBI and involved the cooperative efforts of law enforcement agencies in Thailand, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Canada, the United Kingdom, and France, along with the European law enforcement agency Europol.

How Do You Get On The Dark Web

At the time, the community praised AlphaBay for its sound management. A deadly single mistake with OpSec cost him his life right before the market went crazy. In the future our decentralized network will take care the problem of wallet trust which has been a plague to the darknet market scene for so long. Market admins will finally be able to focus on business development and customer support, exactly what we are doing now but it will be enforceable by the network and its hardcoded protocols.

Many buyers and sellers decided to choose Empire as their new shelter for illegal activities, but some administrators betrayed their trust and pulled out the exit scam that cost its users a million dollar damage. White House Market with its advanced security features and wide product range managed to retain the predominant position, but on the 1st of October 2021 they announced their peaceful retirement. AlphaBay boasts with unmatched reputation and good-standing within the darknet community.

The year of 2021 has seen the rise of alternative social media platforms. Discover the top illicit discussion topics we monitored on these sites. Sign up for your risk-free 90-day 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. As for DeSnake’s market decentralization project, it appears that all 2021 goals have been met, aside from “choosing an official name for the project” which has been kicked to the end of 2022.

Monitoring Dark Web

Alphabay Market has originally been operating from 2014 to 2017 with alpha02 and DeSnake as admins and was the biggest darknet market in history. In July 2017 AlphaBay has suddenly gone offline and it was suspected as an exit scam, however, a few days after it has gone offline, it was revealed that AlphaBay has been seized and alpha02 aka Alexander Cazes was caught. AlphaBay is a principle-driven, vision oriented and community centered marketplace and Forum for all black market items. It boasts of mature management, unparalleled security, 24/7 professional & well-trained Staff.

pgp key

Luckily, the current owner of the platform has a unique and ambitious mission in mind. “Done, hope the fee is high enough. Please let us know how you found the information,” alphabaysupport writes. Learn how to use I2P and you will be able to find AlphaBay always online. Until bigger parts of the community move to I2P, we will have Tor mirrors up and running. Speaking of disputes, a unique innovation which we are bringing to the DNM scene is our very own Automatic Dispute Resolver system. 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.

They implemented escrow system, added Monero as a payment cryptocurrency, and invented such options as automatic selling, autoshop, sticky listings, etc. Consider the staff of AlphaBay, currently the largest dark web marketplace, who appear to have given an extortionist several payments, because the extortionist claimed to have uncovered the identity, or dox, of a former administrator and current employees of the site. AlphaBay mysteriously went offline earlier this month fuelling suspicions among users that law enforcement action had taken place. It was widely considered the biggest online black market for drugs, estimated to host daily transactions totalling hundreds of thousands of pounds after filling the gap left by the takedown of Silk Road in 2013 by the FBI. FBI acting director Andrew McCabe said AlphaBay was 10 times as large as the Silk Road. The sites operated on the Tor network, which helps users browse the internet anonymously.

Dark Web Store

We also analyse many aspects of the internet, including the market share of web servers, operating systems, hosting providers, SSL certificate authorities and web technologies. “Desnake’s posts are particularly “wordy” with extensive lengthy posts on Dread and the market’s About and FAQ section,” the report adds. “Desnake claims there have been 15,000 user accounts created, 450 vendors registered, and over 400 listings published as of the time of writing,” Darkowl’s report finds. Whether vendors and sellers will buy into the new AlphaBay, and how long it might operate before suffering a potential exit scam or law enforcement takedown, only time will tell.

admin

Privacy has always been important to us that is why all buyer profiles are private by default e.g. buyer information (feedback, feedback % positive, ratings/comments for user by other vendors etc.) is only disclosed to vendor when a buyer is making a purchase. The available information is shown before the vendor accepts the order and not after. Vendors are advised to leave their profile to public to enable customers to make a more informed decision. Warning points are used to moderate accounts who do not obey by the simple website rules. In the past we have seen multiple times users do the same thing over and over and over again without any consequences. It took many man hours to deal with few individuals who continued to do things which have not been explicitly disallowed but which affected negatively the productivity of staff.

The So-Called Return of the Alphabay, New Platform Unstable, Veracity of Desnake’s PGP Key Questionable

CommercialYesRegistrationRequiredUsers400,000+LaunchedSeptember 2014Current statusOfflineAlphaBay is a darknet market operating both as an onion service on the Tor network and as an I2P node on I2P. After it was shut down in July 2017 following law enforcement action in the United States, Canada, and Thailand as part of Operation Bayonet, it was relaunched in August 2021 by the self-described co-founder and security administrator DeSnake. The alleged original founder, Alexandre Cazes, a Canadian citizen born on 19 October 1991, was found dead in his cell in Thailand several days after his arrest, with police suspecting suicide. Because of the range of goods and services found for sale and the conversations that occur around these sales, dark web marketplaces can be precious sources of data on criminal activity. As such, they are normally under intense scrutiny from law enforcement and security professionals alike. AlphaBay forum is a place where the community; administrators, buyers and vendors come together to talk, share and discuss.

But if you decide to give this platform a try, don’t forget that any darknet market is doomed to cease its existence eventually, so be prepared and don’t defy the safety rules. Greenberg managed to interview an impressive number of law enforcement agents, who helped him tell the story of these high-profile investigations from the inside. Private sub-forums are back, this time extending to communities like hacking, carding etc. to replace the recent demise of famous underground forums. If you are a advanced/elite individual and want to share a private discussion board with other members of your statue to exchange ideas, code, data or simply to do business, any of our private, vetted and verified members only sub-communities are for you. Namely the infamous VXcode – our private malware sub-community will be restarted with a few members already in who previously survived the raids and continued operating independently, all making the argument for such communities being stronger and more vital to the scene.

Dark Market Onion

It was suspected as an exit scam; however, a few days after it had gone offline, it was revealed that AlphaBay had been seized and alpha02, aka Alexander Cazes, was caught. All in all, “lordlucifer” is right about one thing, plenty of darknet markets tried to replace AlphaBay. People thought that Dream Market was going to take the crown, but its administrator and a very productive vendor Gal Vallerius was arrested within a month after the Operation Bayonet was over. The most essential reason of why you should use AlphaBay over any other marketplace is that by using our escrow you become part of the people who help fund building a decentralized network which benefits everyone – vendors, buyers and even other marketplaces. By purchasing from vendors on our marketplace, you generate profit percentage of which is used to fund the decentralized network. Be part of something bigger, something new, something beneficial to the entire DNM scene, something which comes once in a generation and makes a core change to how people buy and sell in a private, secure and anonymous way.