AlphaBay and Hansa Market are the latest in a long line of dark net markets to rise quickly and then get taken down by law enforcement. The authorities said 122 vendors had been advertising fentanyl on the site. The sale of such drugs on AlphaBay was detailed in a front-page article in The New York Times last month. DeSnake says his security practices—both the ones he’s applying within AlphaBay and on a personal level—go far beyond those of his predecessor, Cazes, who went by the online handle Alpha02. Cazes was caught, in part, through Bitcoin blockchain analysis that confirmed his role as AlphaBay’s boss, a trick that would be far more difficult, if not impossible, with Monero.

Now, 10 months later, thanks in part to a tumult of takedowns and the mysterious disappearances of competing dark web markets, DeSnake’s reincarnated AlphaBay is now well on its way to its former heights atop the digital underworld. 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. DeSnake, by contrast, makes the very bold claim that his work PC could not implicate him even if seized.But all of those technical and operational protections may matter less than a simple geographic one. DeSnake claims to be located in a non-extradition country, beyond the reach of US law enforcement.

AlphaBay was run by admins going by the usernames Alpha02/Admin and DeSnake, along with a team of moderators and a public relations manager. Alpha02/Admin was eventually identified as Alexandre Cazes, a Canadian citizen who was found dead in his cell shortly after his arrest in Thailand in 2017. With best in breed cybersecurity tactics, techniques, and services, we make sure that your environment is secure against the most advanced attacks.

Notorious AlphaBay darknet market comes back to life

Schwartz is an award-winning journalist with two decades of experience in magazines, newspapers and electronic media. He has covered the information security and privacy sector throughout his career. Cazes was arrested “with a view toward extradition to face federal criminal charges in the United States,” Melissa Sweeney, a spokeswoman with the U.S. It is estimated that the market transacted at least $1 billion worth of cryptocurrency since its creation. Someone named DeSnake was the other partner, responsible for the security of the market, and was never caught by the police. Unfortunately, DeSnake’s contributions written in a mixture of English and Russian backfired and senior members of XSS berated them for their lack of operational security and inability to properly understand the dynamics of the Russian language.

The investigation into AlphaBay revealed that numerous vendors sold fentanyl and heroin, and there have been multiple overdose deaths across the country attributed to purchases on the site. Authored by Dexter Shin Instagram has become a platform with over a billion monthly active users. Authored by SangRyol Ryu Cybercriminals are always after illegal advertising revenue.

“You do not shit where you sleep,” he writes of AlphaBay’s rule against selling the stolen data of ex-Soviet citizens. “We did that for security of other staff members. decided to embrace it as a way to secure himself.” AlphaBay has long been rumored to have some sort of connections to Russia or Russians. Its rules have always banned the sale of data stolen from victims in former USSR countries, a common prohibition among Russian hackers intended to shield them from Russian law enforcement scrutiny.

Dark web marketplaces AlphaBay and Hansa shut down

This market is one of the easiest to use and is very simple for inexperienced dark-net users. 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. It features a unique site design unlike any other market yet is still intuitive and easy to use. Conspicuously absent are some preferred features, such as the lack of per-order purchases, a multi-sig option for BTC payments, and forced PGP encryption for communications.

AlphaBay allowed users to sell and buy opioids, including fentanyl and heroin, contributing to a rising drug epidemic in the United States, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said at a news briefing in Washington, D.C. Alphabay Market was originally operating from 2014 to 2017 with alpha02 and DeSnake as admins and was the biggest darknet market in history. 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. The marketplace has over 8,400 listings and 500 vendors who communicate in English and accept Bitcoin for transactions. Access to AlphaBay ceased at the same time as Mr. Cazes’s arrest, but the authorities did not immediately take credit for the operation, and some AlphaBay administrators said they were working to get the site back up.

Dark Web Onion

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. In the end, it was all a coincidence, Cazes walked past, and there was no confrontation.

• Stolen and fake identification documents, malware, hacking tools, firearms, and fraudulent services accounted for another 100,000 listings.
• Ranklez and alpha02 had a history in the carding community as Ranklez sold alpha02 fullz for conducting identity theft.
• The same day, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police executed search warrants at addresses in Quebec tied to the suspect, including at a mini-warehouse in Montreal and residence in Trois-Rivières, searching for computer equipment, the Montreal Gazette reported.
• The products that are most commonly listed for sale include drugs, fake documents, fraud-related items, and hacking services and tools.
• Cazes was logged on to AlphaBay at the time of his arrest, allowing authorities to find his passwords and other information about the site’s servers, according to legal documents.

Gray points to a thread on the largely Russian cybercrime forum XSS, where many commenters expressed their skepticism about DeSnake’s return, some implying that he’s being controlled by law enforcement. “Lol, how many honest comrades will DeSnake have to turn in now to leave the punishment cell?” one commenter asked in Russian. “It’s fake and 99.9% sure and feds opening it again,” another wrote. One of the most well-known dark markets is looking to add support for ethereum in the coming weeks. At the time of writing, the relaunched AlphaBay features three listings. Time will tell if this AlphaBay becomes as popular as the original market – for now this is definitely one to watch.

He was driven to rebuild AlphaBay, he says, after reading about an FBI presentation on the circumstances of Cazes’ arrest that he deemed disrespectful. “AlphaBay name was put in bad light after the raids. I am here to make amends to that.” U.S. Attorney General Jeffrey Sessions is concerned about the use of bitcoin by dark markets online. The Colorado man mediated disputes on the now-defunct darknet marketplace Alphabay. In a potential operational security failure, the suspect allegedly also chronicled the adventures of a “darknet drug trafficker” on Reddit. Some, however, suspect the site’s disappearance may relate to multiple factors.

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This was key because the agents were worried they wouldn’t be able to get evidence from it if it was shut down and encrypted. WASHINGTON – The U.S. Justice Department said on Thursday it had shut down the dark web marketplace AlphaBay, working with international partners to knock offline the site accused of allowing a global trade in drugs, firearms, computer hacking tools and other illicit goods. The American and European authorities said on Thursday that they had shut down two of the largest online black markets, AlphaBay and Hansa Market, and arrested their operators. Nicolas Christin, a dark-web-focused computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University, verified DeSnake’s PGP key against a copy found in his own archive of messages. But that key, he says, could be in the control of law enforcement agencies, or DeSnake himself could have become a law enforcement cooperator. After all, at the same time as AlphaBay’s 2017 takedown, the Dutch police took over and controlled Hansa, the second-largest dark web market at the time.

While darknet sites offer users a veneer of anonymity, suspected users and administrators are not immune to being unmasked and arrested. “The Evolution market famously ended with the loss of 40,000 bitcoins,” he adds. “These exit scams are one of the risks when conducting business in criminal marketplaces,” especially given the soaring value of a bitcoin, which is currently more than $2,330. HugBunter said that despite the raids, the marketplace administrators might well have “exit scammed on July 4th due to the amount of sales for the holiday weekend and the sheer volume of coin that would have been on the market at that current time.” AlphaBay started in 2014 and it became the largest darknet market.