As was customary in Thailand, Guzman had taken off his shoes to go into the model home and hadn’t had time to put them back on, so he stood in the street in his socks. Jen Sanchez leaped up, standing in front of the video screens, pumping her fist in the air. Four years after the arrest of the Silk Road’s Ross Ulbricht with his open laptop at the Glen Park Public Library in San Francisco, it seemed they had pulled off a dead-to-rights dark-web bust of their own. In the NSB office war room, someone announced over the phone that they had the laptop, open and alive. He raced into the house, past Cazes’ wife, who by now stood frozen in the living room, and up the stairs, taking them two at a time. From studying the layout of the spec house, M had determined that Cazes’ home office must be across the upstairs hall from the master bedroom.
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. Known for its publicity stunt releasing millions of stolen card details for free, BidenCash specializes in credit card fraud and identity theft. The Italian presentation confirmed that Chainalysis can, in fact, identify the IP addresses of some wallets on the blockchain. It did so by running its own Bitcoin nodes, which quietly monitored transaction messages.
Dark Web Marketplace Owners Charged With Facilitating $430M In Illegal Goods Sales
“I understand if you decide not to but over time you will be proven that we are the original AB and we have never been ‘compromised’ in any way shape or form.” “I am still in disbelief to this day that he had put his personal email on there,” DeSnake says. While few of DeSnake’s claims can be confirmed, he has at least enjoyed unusual longevity for a dark web market operator. Security firm Flashpoint says it has seen evidence and descriptions of DeSnake operating under the same pseudonym—first as a credit-card-focused cybercriminal on sites like Evolution and Tor Carder Forum before becoming a market administrator himself—since at least 2013.
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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. In messages to WIRED, AlphaBay’s new boss describes having lived in the former USSR, and he previously wrote Russian-language messages to users on the original AlphaBay’s forums. 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.
Implications For Users
DeSnake promised users that this time, operational security would be the top priority, and that the only accepted form of payment would be Monero, a cryptocurrency widely considered the most difficult to trace. AlphaBay would also be accessible through both Tor and I2P, a more private, less surveilled anonymity layer. “Seasoned users expected this,” adds Isak Ladegaard, a sociological researcher at Boston College. He says many dark web drug vendors have learned to sell across multiple different marketplaces to diversify their risk. Even so, the chaos in the wake of AlphaBay’s disappearance shouldn’t deal a death blow to the dark web’s vibrant drug trade, or even cause much more than a temporary shakeup, says Carnegie Mellon’s Christin.
Verified Market Links
Launched in December 2014, it quickly gained traction among users seeking a variety of goods, ranging from illegal drugs to counterfeit items. The site became a hub for vendors and buyers alike, providing a secure environment that facilitated anonymous transactions through cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. However, its rise was paired with a series of events that ultimately led to its dramatic downfall.
- Known for its publicity stunt releasing millions of stolen card details for free, BidenCash specializes in credit card fraud and identity theft.
- The local post office had warned them that Cazes never signed for packages himself, that his wife often came to the door instead.
- These shifts tie into how markets like these are evolving—check them out below.
- Its sheer scale made it a primary target for law enforcement, culminating in a major international operation that seized its infrastructure and led to the arrest of its alleged administrator.
Prong 1: Taking Down AlphaBay, The Biggest Darknet Market
In 2014, Rabenn began forming his dark-web strike force, inviting local investigators from Fresno’s Homeland Security Investigations and IRS Criminal Investigations offices to join. It was a small team of “odd ducks,” as he describes them—agents on the more cerebral side, content to work cases largely on a computer screen instead of kicking down doors like their Central Valley colleagues. Trying to give the impression of an inexperienced driver, Nueng slowly rolled the car toward a model home and real estate office at the end of the cul-de-sac. She signaled to a security guard outside the house that she had taken a wrong turn and needed to pull a 180. She heard him shout at her to back directly out instead, that the street was too narrow for a three-point turn. We strongly recommend using ADR because it is exactly the same steps a moderator would take during a dispute without the need to babysit both parties.
- Offsite agents made an image of AlphaBay’s Lithuanian server, which they were to take offline as soon as an arrest was made, while others staked out Cazes’ house in Bangkok.
- A user who speculated Hansa had been compromised in a thread posted 10 days before the Department of Justice announced the bust returned on Thursday to warn that Dream Market will suffer the same fate.
- But he also found that he admired and envied the prosecutors on the other side of the table—the way they worked in the public interest and possessed a certain autonomy, choosing which cases they would pursue.
- When AlphaBay became inaccessible as a result, thousands of its buyers and vendors flocked to the then law enforcement-ran Hansa market to continue their operations.
- Even on the day that the Hansa takedown was announced and Operation Bayonet was finally revealed, some users seemed ready to return to the dark web as soon as the chaos subsided, and their insatiable need for another fix began to make itself felt.
- The administrator, DeSnake, for unknown reasons, was unable to sign off in time, leading to the end of AlphaBay 2.0.
Thailand’s DEA equivalent, the Narcotics Suppression Bureau, had assembled an entire theatrical production’s worth of actors around the unwitting target, busily performing their roles and waiting for a signal for Operation Bayonet’s takedown to finally begin. Monero’s ring signatures, stealth addresses, and RingCT ensure untraceable trades. In 2025, 95% of markets prefer XMR over BTC’s public ledger, with transaction volume up 60% since 2023. These shifts tie into how markets like these are evolving—check them out below. Jumping into the dark web can feel like a maze, but it’s pretty doable once you’ve got the basics down. It’s free, masks your IP, and bounces your connection around so no one’s peeking over your shoulder.
Vice City Market
DarkOwl has been unable to assess how the larger darknet community (outside of Dread) feels about the new Alphabay Market. AlphaBay historically had a vocal and persistence presence on Darknet Market Avengers forum which unfortunately, has been offline for several weeks. When authorities carried out the warrant and arrest in his apartment in Bangkok, his laptop was left unencrypted and the admin account for the market and server logged in. Authorities also simultaneously executed search warrants for the market’s server hardware located in Quebec, Canada. On 7th August 2021 DeSnake re-opened AlphaBay for business after having his identity verified by PGP, forum admins, ex-AlphaBay staff members (those not caught) and multiple security researchers.
Thai authorities seized the servers hosting AlphaBay, and cut off access to users, but did not publicly announce the closure or takeover of the platform. The rumours this incited among the malicious actors on dark web forums ranged from technical issues, to exit scams in which dark web marketplace administrators shut down the platform and to steal the users’ money. When a judge imposed a double life sentence on the Silk Road’s Ross Ulbricht in May 2015, she told the court that the draconian sentence was partly meant to scare off future dark-web drug buyers, dealers, and administrators. By the time of AlphaBay’s rise, that unprecedented punishment seemed to have had the opposite effect. A study in The British Journal of Criminology found that sales on what was then the top dark-web site, Agora, more than doubled in the days following the news of Ulbricht’s sentencing, to more than $350,000 a day.
Regardless of whether it ends up as a success or a failure, it will still be exciting to observe the AlphaBay’s journey. 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. What was it about this particular marketplace that people found so appealing? AlphaBay’s developers applied multiple sophisticated features and edge-cutting technologies, which ended up becoming inherent elements of almost any contemporary darknet market. They implemented escrow system, added Monero as a payment cryptocurrency, and invented such options as automatic selling, autoshop, sticky listings, etc. Some dark web marketplaces even host content that’s not just illegal but extremely harmful, so it’s really important to understand the risks before diving in.
We are committed to human-centred care, innovation, and actionable health insights. Australia’s leading at-home genomic healthcare service, offering inclusive, actionable genetic testing and counselling for reproductive and preventative health. Now, back from the dead, AlphaBay hopes to reestablish itself as the eBay of the dark web. But whether it ever bests its predecessor’s records — or regains its once-storied, now-sullied reputation — remains to be seen. In August 2021, AlphaBay returned to the dark web, this time under the sole helm of its former second-in-command, the still-anonymous DeSnake.
Difference Between AlphaBay Market And Other Darknet Markets
So a week after pausing new registrations on Hansa, the Driebergen team turned them on again. And when the Dutch reached out to the FBI, they were surprised and relieved to find that the Americans were willing to keep mum—to follow the Dutch team’s lead and delay any announcement of the entirety of Operation Bayonet. The still-operational, undercover half of their one-two punch would remain hidden for as long as the Dutch chose to pursue it. Rowley noticed chatter on forums and subreddits pointing to Dream Market as the next AlphaBay, but people are wary after the Dutch police ploy.
