Thailand authorities were also able to seize cars and real estate valued at roughly $12.5 million after Cazes’ arrest. His identity was discovered by the FBI after several OpSec lapses such as the use of the AlphaBay admin’s personal email address for delivering welcoming messages to new members on AlphaBay’s forum. AlpaBay’s creator, Canadian national Alexandre Cazes, was also arrested at his residence in Bangkok, Thailand in June 2017 by the Royal Thai Police with the help of the FBI and the DEA. According to court documents, between May 2016 and July 2017, Herrell acted as a marketplace moderator and a scam watcher known under the ‘Penissmith’ and ‘Botah’ nicknames.

Interestingly, the last known Monero-I2P-centric market was Liberitas, which went offline in June 2019 after a very short stint on the I2P network. In early August 2021, DeSnake resurfaced on Dread, the popular Reddit-like discussion forum on the darknet administrated and moderated by users, Hugbunter and Paris. Dread staff “vouched” for DeSnake to skeptical darknet users with DeSnake signing documents using their historical PGP key.

Darknet Porn Sites

We do not want donations, moving your business to us and spreading the word is more than enough. If you want to go the extra mile there will be other activities which we will need help with to make the network run. Those who are outspoken and are active members members/vendors or developers will benefit from the network launching in the long term.

By using our marketplace you help fund the development of the Decentralized Market Network. The new AlphaBay market’s Tor service has been unstable since its launch, with frequent 503 errors, user registration issues, and login timeouts. After almost two months of operation, the market has a handful of vendors, with only a couple of hundred listings across drugs and fraud goods. DeSnake claims there have been 15,000 user accounts created, 450 vendors registered, and over 400 listings published as of the time of writing. While Silk Road made its name selling drugs, AlphaBay was prolific in its black market products. In the first six months of 2017, it reportedly sold $5 million worth of stolen credit card numbers alone.

Dark web marketplace Dream Market to close after U.S. police nab suspected vendors

Furthermore, there is a ban on discussions of any public or private information related to the governments, organizations, or people of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, and Kyrgyzstan. This has led to loose speculation that there is a connection between the site operators and the governments of these nations. I’m very curious to see over the coming days and weeks how users react to the news. The drug community is naturally a little bit more skittish than the fraud community, and I think we will see them more openly discuss their intentions for next steps. The question now remains whether or not the vendors who were trading in non-drug related goods move on to the remaining major markets or if we begin to see a major fraud-related (not just carding-related) market take shape.

“It is a system to ensure users can withdraw funds, settle disputes, and generally go without a cent lost if raids happen,” DeSnake writes, “even if it happens on all servers at the same time. It is unstoppable.” To help you trace the illegal trade of products, cybercriminal activity, and the hottest dark web trends, we have compiled a list of the top 10 leading dark web marketplaces. 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.

AlphaBay Market—then and now

US government, in cooperation with European authorities, has shut down the infamous dark web market, AlphaBay. 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. Stack Exchange network consists of 181 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow, the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers. The new management believes in the future and encourages everybody to use I2P. Furthermore, Tor has of late been neglecting some essential upgrades.

• Per standard modes of purchase in AlphaBay are Escrow and Finalize Early .
• By checking this box, you confirm that you have read and are agreeing to our terms of use regarding the storage of the data submitted through this form.
• Bangkok vowed to conduct an autopsy, while US authorities had no interest in verifying the legitimacy of the suspect’s death.

In addition to Darkowl’s report, the anonymous journalist and researcher known as “dark.fail” (@darkdotfail) tweeted about the return of the so-called Alphabay and gave a warning. “Alphabay, a #1 darknet market seized by law enforcement four years ago, recently returned,” dark.fail said on Thursday. “Desnake proved their control of old PGP key, an original site admin. Can seize PGP private keys just like anything else,” the researcher added.

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 AlphaBay first reappeared, Gray and other dark web analysts and users expressed suspicion that DeSnake might be compromised by law enforcement. 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.

Tor Darknet Market

Unless you’re using a FE enabled vendor but if not, the payment should complete after the seller marks it as shipped . And the market recommends never completing an order before receiving it. The AlphaBay escrow service safeguards your funds until the transaction is concluded and the seller is paid. Once you’ve eceived an item and verified that it fulfills your expectations, then the next step.