Criminal’s online market network targeted by US after founder dies in Thai jail cell
The US government sued to seize luxury cars, international real estate and bitcoins owned by the alleged mastermind of AlphaBay, the biggest criminal marketplace on the dark web, just days after he reportedly hanged himself in his jail cell in Thailand.
AlphaBay was allegedly created in 2014 by Alexandre Cazes, a 26-year-old Canadian living in the Southeast Asian country. It had 200,000 users and 40,000 sellers with about 369,000 listings for drugs, guns, fake IDs, malware and other illegal goods when it was shut down this month, according to the government. That makes it 10 times bigger than the Silk Road drug bazaar that ended with its founder’s arrest in 2013, the US said.
“We are an anonymous marketplace selling drugs, weapons and credit cards. We take no responsibility if you get caught, so protecting yourself is your responsibility”
“Most of this activity was in illegal drugs, pouring fuel on the fire of the national drug epidemic,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a press conference in Washington on Thursday. “As of earlier this year, 122 vendors advertised fentanyl and 238 advertised heroin, and we know of several Americans who were killed by drugs sold on Alpha Bay.”
Cazes, known online as “Alpha02,” ran the website from its inception and controlled massive profits generated from the operation, collecting tens of millions of dollars in commissions, the government said. Cazes was arrested in Thailand on July 5, a day after the website was taken down at the request of the US. According to the Bangkok Post, Thai police said Cazes hanged himself in jail where he was being held pending extradition to the US.
Users accessed AlphaBay on The Onion Router, or TOR, a network of computers designed to hide the identity of users, according to the government. Customers bought illegal goods using digital currencies, the US said.
Among the items the US sued to seize are a 2013 Lamborghini Aventador, a Porsche Panamera, a BMW motorcycle, properties in Thailand, Cyprus, Liechtenstein and Antigua and Barbuda, and digital currencies including bitcoins, ethereum and ZCash.