AlphaBay: Global authorities shut down dark net market 10 times the size of 2013’s Silk Road

The US Justice Department has announced it has shut down the dark net marketplace AlphaBay, working with international partners to knock offline the site accused of allowing hundreds of thousands of people to buy and sell drugs, firearms, computer hacking tools and other illicit goods.

Key points:

• Attorney-General calls it “one of the most important criminal investigations of the year”
• A 25-year-old suspected founder has taken his own life while in custody in Thailand
• Hansa Market, another dark net marketplace, also taken down in The Netherlands
• The FBI says AlphaBay was 10 times the size of Silk Road, a market shut down in 2013

The action marked one of the largest law enforcement actions ever taken against criminals on the dark net, authorities said, striking a blow to the international drug trade that has increasingly moved online in recent years.

AlphaBay mysteriously went offline earlier this month. It was widely seen as the biggest and most popular online black market for illicit items, such as drugs, estimated to host daily transactions totalling hundreds of thousands of dollars.

What is the dark net?

For all that is written about the dark net, most people struggle to understand it. Here’s a simple, user-friendly explainer of what it is, how it is used, and the questions it raises as we drift deeper into the digital age.

The site allowed users to sell and buy opioids, including fentanyl and heroin, contributing to a rising drug epidemic in the United States, Attorney-General Jeff Sessions said.

“The dark net is not a place to hide,” Mr Sessions said at a news briefing in Washington, DC to announce the action.

Source: AlphaBay: Global authorities shut down dark net market 10 times the size of 2013’s Silk Road – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)