Feds Seize AlphaBay and Hansa Markets in Major Dark-Web Bust
It's finally confirmed — In a coordinated International operation, Europol along with FBI, DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) and Dutch National Police have seized and
taken down AlphaBay, one of the largest criminal marketplaces on the Dark Web.
But not just
AlphaBay, the law enforcement agencies have also seized another illegal dark web market called
HANSA, Europol confirmed in a press release today.
According to Europol, both underground criminals markets are "responsible for the trading of over 350,000 illicit commodities including drugs, firearms and cybercrime malware."
On July 4th,
AlphaBay suddenly went downwithout any explanation from its administrators, which left its customers in panic. Some of them even suspected that the website's admins had pulled an exit scam and stole user funds.
However, last week it was reported that the mysterious shut down of the dark web marketplace reportedly been knocked offline by the international authorities after the police conducted a series of raids.
The raid also resulted in the arrest of Alexandre Cazes, a 26-year-old Canadian citizen who allegedly was one of the AlphaBay's operators, and was awaiting extradition to the US when a guard
found him hanged in his jailcell the next day.
Europol just
announcedthat two of the largest criminal Dark Web markets—AlphaBay and Hansa—have shut down the infrastructure "responsible for the trading of over 350 000 illicit commodities including drugs, firearms and cybercrime malware."
"This is an outstanding success by authorities in Europe and the US. The capability of drug traffickers and other serious criminals around the world has taken a serious hit today after a highly sophisticated joint action in multiple countries," Rob Wainwright, Europol Executive Director said.
"By acting together on a global basis the law enforcement community has sent a clear message that we have the means to identify criminality and strike back, even in areas of the Dark Web. There are more of these operations to come."
Feds Control Hansa for Around a Month
This is what made the operation more interesting.
The federal authorities revealed that they secretly took control over the Hansa market around a month ago and kept it running in an effort to monitor the activities of vendors and buyers without their knowledge.
And here's the Icing on the cake — During the same period federal authorities purposely only took down AlphaBay, forcing their users to join the Hansa market for illegal trading and purchasing.
"We could identify and disrupt the regular criminal activity that was happening on Hansa market but also sweep up all of those new users that were displaced from AlphaBay and looking for a new trading platform for their ciminal activities," Rod Jay Rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney General for the DoJ, said today in a live press conference in Washington DC.
After the disappearance of
Silk Road, AlphaBay emerged in 2014 and became a leader among dark web marketplaces for selling illicit goods from drugs to stolen credit card numbers, exploits, and malware.
Prior to its takedown, AlphaBay Market reached more than 200,000 customers and 40,000 vendors, with over 250,000 listings for illegal drugs and over 100,000 stolen and fraudulent identification documents and access devices, malware and other computer hacking tools.
Authorities believed that the dark websites like AlphaBay and Hansa were responsible for lost of many lives in America.
"Today, some of the most prolific drug suppliers use what is called the dark web, which is a collection of hidden websites that you can only access if you mask your identity and your location," Rosenstein said.
"One victim was just 18 years old when in February she overdosed on a powerful synthetic opioid which she had bought on AlphaBay. Grant Siever, only 13 years of age, a student at Treasure Mountain Junior High School, Utah, Park City. When he passed away, after overdosing on a synthetic opioid that had been purchased by a classmate on AlphaBay."
Like AlphaBay,
Silk Road, the largest Dark Web market at that time, was also shut down after the law enforcement raided its servers in 2013 and arrested its founder
Ross William Ulbricht, who has been sentenced to life in prison.
The feds also seized Bitcoins (worth $33.6 million, at that time) from the dark web site. Those Bitcoins were later
sold in a series of auctionsby the United States Marshals Service (USMS).
from The Hacker News http://ift.tt/2ttJ64t