Feds Seize AlphaBay and Hansa Markets in Major Dark-Web Bust

[FrgMstr]

Mystery, suicide, intrigue, and digital currency make a headline over at the hacker news which reads a bit like it came out of an episode of NCIS. Actually I have never seen that show, so what do I know.

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The raid also resulted in the arrest of Alexandre Cazes, a 26-year-old Canadian citizen who was one of the alleged AlphaBay's operators and was awaiting extradition to the US when a guard found him hanged in his jail cell the next day.

Now, Europol just announced that two of the largest criminal Dark Web markets—AlphaBay and Hansa— have shut down by the authorities, as the infrastructure "responsible for the trading of over 350 000 illicit commodities including drugs, firearms and cybercrime malware."

 

[Silentbob343]

I heard it was due to the use of a hotmail account being used to send site updates to users.

 

[Master_shake_]

i heard that if you cut off the head 6 more will take it's place.

welcome to internet whack-a-mole.

 

[Jim Kim]

I heard it was due to the use of a hotmail account being used to send site updates to users.

That would be reason enough to issue an arrest warrant.

 

[lcpiper]

Didn't someone piss off some Chinese Gold Farmers just the other day?

 

[SomeoneElse]

These hangings are becoming a thing lately.....i'm not sure it was suicide though i have not read any reports on the investigation, when dealing with shady groups / mob activity / organized crime these things show up as cover ups. Interesting that the authorities seized the sites and captured a guy and the next day he was found dead.
Never used Alpha bay but its part of the Dark Web so you know there are guys that don't want to be found out.

 

[Spidey329]

I heard it was due to the use of a hotmail account being used to send site updates to users.

That would be similar to how they took down the silkroad guy.

If you're going to run one of these sites you best be damn sure you do all of your admin work from a disposable laptop that won't access the internet without a strong foreign (non-US friendly) VPN. It only takes one slip up.

 

[trparky]

The feds learned that the email address belonged to a Canadian man named Alexandre Cazes with the birth date October 19, 1991, and was working as president of a software company called EBX Technologies.

He had it all, he fucking had it all. He had the job, he had the money. Yet the jackass threw it all away with criminal activity. That's some real Grade A Stupid with a capital S!

 

[gxp500]

I heard it was due to the use of a hotmail account being used to send site updates to users.

Silentbob343 we missed you, you haven't purchased any crack in 26 days, please come back and use this 10% off coupon...

 

[GreenOrbs]

I found it interesting that while all the news articles mention how the police supposedly found the admin of AlphaBay by his personal email used years ago, they never mentioned how Hansa was brought down. I'm wondering if there are other privacy related implications that the government doesn't want people to focus on such as perhaps a method of compromising Tor, for example.

The government is making a big fuss about the old email address but I'm really wondering if it is something like when police use Stingrays to track cell phones they have to come up with another excuse to prevent people from knowing they were used. In many situations, prosecutors have dropped charges rather than reveal information about how these devices are used (https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/stingray-new-frontier-police-surveillance) <-- Even a think tank founded by the Koch brothers thinks this is an issue.