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Businesses The Almighty Buck The Internet

Dark Web Marketplace AlphaBay Shuts For Good After Police Raids (theregister.co.uk) 112

Posted by msmash from the rip dept.
Dark web marketplace AlphaBay's closure last week followed an international law enforcement operation and multiple raids, it has emerged. It has also been reported that a key suspect who was arrested in the raids has died in custody. From a report: The world's biggest online drug bazaar dropped offline on 5 July, sparking fears that its administrators had disappeared taking a swag bag of digital currency with them, pulling an "exit scam" like other dark web marketplace kingpins before them. The Wall Street Journal reports that a Canadian suspected of running AlphaBay was arrested in Thailand on 5 July following an international police operation involving authorities in the US and Canada as well as Thailand. Alexandre Cazes, the 26-year-old who had been accused of being the site's admin, was found dead in a Thai jail cell on Wednesday, the WSJ adds. The Bangkok Post reported that Cazes had been resident in Thailand for about eight years and had a Thai wife. Thai authorities said they'd seized four Lamborghini cars and three upmarket residences with a combined value of $11.7m (400 million Thai Baht). US authorities had apparently been seeking to extradite Cazes at the time of his death.
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Dark Web Marketplace AlphaBay Shuts For Good After Police Raids More

Dark Web Marketplace AlphaBay Shuts For Good After Police Raids

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  • Rule 1. Don't attract attention. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 0100010001010011 ( 652467 ) on Friday July 14, 2017 @01:42PM (#54810025)

    Thai authorities said they'd seized four Lamborghini cars and three upmarket residences with a combined value of $11.7m (400 million Thai Baht). US authorities had apparently been seeking to extradite Cazes at the time of his death.

    This guy could have lead a very comfortable life bouncing around the globe traveling, occasionally logging in to make sure things were running smoothly and shifting money out.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Dunbal ( 464142 ) *
      Confirming they never check your identity at any border.

      • Did his passport say "AlphaBay Founder"?

        • Re:Rule 1. Don't attract attention. (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Dunbal ( 464142 ) * on Friday July 14, 2017 @02:03PM (#54810213)
          Did his house in Thailand say "AlphaBay Founder". They found HIM then they figured out where to get him. No one issued a warrant for "the person or persons living at IP XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX". So if they know who to arrest, it's not hard to put the flag to stop him at the border of any cooperating country.

          • Did his house in Thailand say "AlphaBay Founder".

            Dude. He had four Lamborghini and three houses in Thailand. The price of a lambo is like $200k. The average monthly wages for a worker in thailand is evidently $4k. [worldsalaries.org] The price of those cars was equal to 16 years of the average worker's wages.

            Fuck checking ID at the border. A 26 year old throwing that kind of money around is going to be all the ID law enforcement outside of a very small number of rich countries need to demand payoffs. You know he's doing something illegal.

            I'd guess that's why he was "fo

            • Re: Rule 1. Don't attract attention. (Score:1)

              by Anonymous Coward

              4k? You got something wrong.

              • I was just reading the "constant 2005 US$ at PPP." Some googling reveals that yeah, those numbers must not mean what I thought they mean. It appears the average wage would actually be ten times lower?

          • They found HIM then they

            How did they find HIM? Did he put his name in the AB source code?

            then they figured out where to get him

            "Hey locals, you know of anyone that has a stupid amount of money in the area"?

            Would it have been as easy to find him if he wasn't flaunting $12M+ in assets?

            if they know who to arrest

            How did they figure that out?

          • The money was likely how they found him. Bitcoin and other crypto currencies are completely traceable if it is a real bank account or are converted a real money. They only remain anonymous while they are never used. The minute you do anything with them you tie them to your real life and with block chain public it becomes trivial for law enforcement to follow the block chain transaction to your real bank account and arrest you. A canadian living in Thailand with millions in money was likely creating so many

        • Unless you're an 80 year old granny.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      Baptist minister in Texas. Nobody will look at you too hard. And having a garage full of Lamborghinis and a few private jets will just blend you in to that crowd.

    • Re:Rule 1. Don't attract attention. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Friday July 14, 2017 @03:00PM (#54810667)

      Indeed. It is a criminal "best practice" to stay under the radar. As is usual in these cases, he will be replaced by more careful operators within no time. Meanwhile, the utterly senseless "War on Drugs" (really a war on self-determination and what you can do for fun waged by authoritarian scum) will continue without any positive effects, but doing massive damage.

      • Reformed criminal chiming in to say, You got it 100% correct.. However very few people understand that, and the people that do understand it, and have the power to do something about it don't want to.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          Thanks. There do not seem to be a lot of people around that understand anything. And those that do usually do not want power because they can see how it utterly corrupts those that do have it. Kind of a negative feedback-loop where only people completely unsuitable to wield it get power. Unless the human race learn to screen them out, the future does not look good.

        • Reformed...me too. That's the ticket...

          • Yes sir! Money is a lot easier to come by this way, and I don't have to look over my shoulder for cops and other criminals anymore. Far less stressful. I hear people talk about stress at work and I just chuckle and think to myself "If you only knew what stress was."

            • Like I said on another thread. I'd never steal a million dollars, but 200 million+? You'd never see me again.

      • will continue without any positive effects, but doing massive damage.

        Cui bono?

        It's positive for policemen and those who sell their toys.
        It's positive for prison owners and unions.
        It's positive for the "justice" system.
        It's positive for the people who sell "interdiction" equipment.
        It's positive for politicians who need an internal enemy.
        It's positive for black ops budgets.
        It's positive for big pharma.
        It's positive for organized crime.

        It's only doing massive damage to The People. And that's who it's a War o

    • What is the point of being rich if no one knows about it?

      There is having enough money to live well, but after a point when you have too much money thus you gain the stress and problems of having too much money. There is no value in having a lot of money, having to deal with the stress of having all this money, and then getting treated like a normal guy.

    • Rule 1. Don't attract attention.

      Rule 2. Don't send your psychopath son to meet with Russian spies.

    • More than likely, the local police were being paid off to look the other way at his dealings. When heavy attention came on, he suddenly got hung. Corruption doesn't like a spotlight.

  • I am aghast! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Friday July 14, 2017 @01:43PM (#54810041)

    Where will I spend my Bitcoin now?

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Just hang on to it and watch the value plummet.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gnick ( 1211984 )

      Where will I spend my Bitcoin now?

      Dream Market for one. They're not as big as AlphaBay, but they're big enough. Lop off one head...

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        As long as there is a reasonable product and buyers, there will be a market. The problem here is authoritarians that are unable to respect the life-choices of others. And it is them that are responsible for all drug-related crime.

    • Try darkweb.honeypot.com

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nnet ( 20306 )
      buying thai bhat. do try to keep up.

  • Suspicious to say the least (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Sounds like he was murdered to keep him from talking. Probably a CIA hit.

  • "Found dead" (Score:4, Interesting)

    by WolfgangVL ( 3494585 ) on Friday July 14, 2017 @02:00PM (#54810199)

    Nice.

    I suppose when they seize everything, you can no longer grease the hand that feeds you.
    OR
    Maybe he was a loudmouth asshole in a place where loudmouth assholes are often "found dead"?

    Ether way, I imagine Tai prison is a special kind of hell.

    • Well he probably had the local law enforcement paid off and figured he was safe. Once it got international law attention the locals aren't going to want to be implicated...

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Drug trafficking can get you the death penalty in Thailand.

    • deadmouth is far safer for anyone else involved. Especially for someone so young regardless of how guarded he was with his mouth.

  • I'm waiting for my man (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    26 bitcoins in my hand.

  • Don't cut into the CIA's market (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    or they and the corrupt government behind them will come for you.

  • Alexandre Cazes, the 26-year-old who had been accused of being the site's admin, was found dead in a Thai jail cell on Wednesday,...Thai authorities said they'd seized four Lamborghini cars

    Although not the lifestyle for me, you have to admire someone who adheres so purely to the motto "Live Fast and Die Young".

  • using the Philippine model, simply kill drug dealers?

  • Casey Neistat did a video review [youtu.be] of "American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road" [amzn.to] by Nick Bilton. The Silk Road was the black market of the Internet where you could have gotten anything. I haven't read it yet but looks like a good read.

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