Illegal Marketplace On The Dark Web Shut Down

A Dark Web marketplace known as AlphaBay has been brought down by an international law enforcement effort between the United States, Canada, and Thailand.

AlphaBay rose in prominence after the operator of the Silk Road, Ross Ulbricht, was arrested and his site shut down in 2013. In the years since, AlphaBay became the largest underground marketplace. The sudden end of AlphaBay has given other marketplaces on the Deep Web a sudden boost in their customer base.

In their investigation, authorities have discovered that AlphaBay generated most of its revenue through the sale of illicit items, including drugs, credit card credentials, and firearms, earning anywhere from $600,000 and $800,000 each and every day. Before the news broke that AlphaBay had been taken down, there was plenty of speculation tossed about, some suspecting that the operators had taken their cryptocurrency and ran, as others who operated on the Dark Web were known to have done.

In actuality, one of AlphaBay’s operators--Alexandre Cazas of Canada--had been grabbed by Thailand authorities on the day that the site was taken down. He was later discovered dead in his cell of an apparent suicide.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police were brought in to investigate Cazas’ apartment in Trois-Rivières, Quebec. Some of the site’s servers were claimed, which could very well lead investigators to other operators of AlphaBay.

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