Paul Dughi

AlphaBay was an online marketplace on the dark web – a place where literally hundreds of thousands of crooks buy and sell drugs, traffic in stolen identities, and trade hacking tools. The twoyear-old marketplace did more than $1 billion dollars in Bitcoin transactions. It was significant source for trading illegal drugs like heroin. It took a sophisticated and coordinated attack by authorities to shut down the site, but the path to making the connections came from the mastermind’s’ lack of security. Authorities nabbed the man allegedly behind the marketplace. 25-year old Canadian Alexandre Cazes was a bit sloppy with his security despite the high-tech enterprise. The U.S. Department of Justice reports Cazes used his personal Hotmail email address to send a welcome message to new users and used the same email to link to a PayPal account, which in turn was linked to a bank account in his name. When police raided his home in Thailand, they found an unlocked laptop which was logged in to his admin account. Calling it a landmark operation, Andrew McCabe of the FBI said they worked with international agencies to make the bust. “We’re talking about multiple servers in different countries,” he said. Law enforcement agencies representing the U.S., Canada, the U.K., France, Thailand, the Netherlands, and Lithuania all took part. “Several hundred investigations across the globe were conducted at the same time,” according to Nicholas Phirippidis, FBI Special Agent. More Than 200,000 Users And 40,000 Sellers This size of the marketplace was enormous. AlphaBay claimed more than 200,000 users and 40,000 sellers. When the FBI operation struck, the site showed more than a quarter million listing for illegal drugs. It showed more than 100,000 stolen and fake IDs, hacking tools, guns, and counterfeit products for sale. Seizures, Forfeitures, And Suicide Officials were successful in freezing assets, including millions of dollars’ worth of cryptocurrency. As proceeds from illegal activities, the assets are subject to forfeiture. The U.S. Attorney’s Office filed a forfeiture complaint against Cazes and his wife, seizing homes and property in Thailand, Cyprus, Antigua, Barbados, and Lichtenstein. The pair had amassed money, cryptocurrency, and plenty of toys. Among the items seized were $5 million dollars in BitCoin, $1.8 million in Euthereum, three quarters of a million dollars in Zcash, a Porches Panamera S, BMW Motorcycle, Mini Cooper, and a Lamborhini. Going by the online names “Alpha02” and “Admin,” Cazes was arrested in Thailand, and died while in custody. Authorities believe he committed suicide while in jail. “This is likely one of the most important criminal investigations of the year – taking down the largest dark net marketplace in history,” said U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. “I believe that because of this operation, people around the world are safer from the threat of identity fraud and malware, and safer from deadly drugs.” Once Shut Down, Crooks Moved To Another Marketplace As part of the investigation, Dutch law enforcement officials uncovered another online marketplace, called the Hansa Market, which was being used for illegal purposes. Immediately after officials shut down AlphaBay, many of the vendors had transferred their illegal drugs and criminal enterprise sales to the Hansa Market. Dutch police were monitoring the activity on the site surreptitiously, which allowed them to identify those displaced by AlphaBay looking for a new home. “Taking down two major dark sites at once is considerable,” the FBI’s McCabe said. “We will go to the ends of the earth to find these people and to stop them.”