DOJ takes down dark net marketplace
DOJ takes down dark net marketplace
BY JOE UCHILL - 07/20/17 10:37 AM EDT
The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Thursday said it had
shut down the online criminal market AlphaBay and one of its chief competitors,
Hansa.
"This is likely one of the most important criminal
cases of the year," said Attorney General Jeff Sessions at a press
conference.
Sessions said the DOJ had seized the infrastructure and
arrested the criminal market's owner, ending speculation about why AlphaBay had
recently disappeared.
On July 5, Alexandre Cazes, a Canadian citizen living in
Thailand, was arrested for creating and running the AlphaBay marketplace. He
reportedly took his own life in Thai custody one week later.
AlphaBay went offline around the same time as the arrest.
AlphaBay sold illegal goods, including drugs, weapons and
hacking tools, anonymously. Like the Silk Road marketplace before it, was a
site hosted on the Tor network's hidden services — meaning it didn't leave a
traceable internet address for authorities to track down. Tor also protected
customers' internet addresses, and payments were handled using
difficult-to-trace cryptocurrency.
A DOJ press release notes that there were more than
350,000 listings for goods on AlphaBay when it was taken down. Silk Road only
had 14,000.
After AlphaBay went dark, many of its patrons moved to
Hansa, a competitor, not knowing that law enforcement had taken control of that
site as well.
"Make no mistake, the forces of law and justice face
a new challenge from the criminals and transnational criminal organizations who
think they can commit their crimes with impunity by 'going dark,'" said
Sessions.
"This case, pursued by dedicated agents and
prosecutors, says you are not safe. You cannot hide. We will find you,
dismantle your organization and network. And we will prosecute you."
Because the sites on the Tor network are not searchable
by sites such as Google, they are referred to as being on the dark web.
However, the phrase "going dark" is usually applied to criminals
using encrypted communications, not the dark web.
Law enforcement is getting better at these takedowns,
said Ronnie Tokazowski, senior malware analyst at the threat intelligence group
Flashpoint.
"Usually, within six months of one market going
down, the next market will take over as the go-to destination. But this has a
chance for more lasting effects," he said.
Tokazowski pointed to the flood of information that
AlphaBay and Hansa would provide law enforcement to work with.
When AlphaBay went down, the reason was not immediately
clear. Many thought that the site's disappearance was an "exit scam,"
where a market owner takes all of the cryptocurrency stored by the site and
runs.
The investigation is ongoing, including a search for site
staff members.
The Tor network, which anonymizes web traffic, was
developed for persecuted activists, charitable groups and journalists to
communicate without fear of reprisal from oppressive governments. The majority
of its traffic is to visit traditional web sites.
The DOJ credited the Royal Thai Police, Dutch National
Police, Lithuanian Criminal Police Bureau, Royal Canadian Mounted Police,
United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency, Europol and French National Police for
assistance on the case.
Updated 12:26 p.m.
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