What distinguished AlphaBay from its predecessors such as Silk Road was its expansive inventory and user-friendly interface. It allowed sellers to create listings for their goods or services, complete with user reviews, an escrow system for secure transactions, and a feedback mechanism similar to eBay. As a result, it quickly garnered a large user base, with estimates suggesting that by 2017, AlphaBay hosted approximately 350,000 listings and served over 200,000 users. Overall, AlphaBay’s combination of anonymity, security measures, and a wide variety of illicit products made it the largest dark web marketplace from 2015 to 2017.
- He was the alleged founder and administrator of the site, using the code name “Alpha02” in communications.
- The sunbaked agricultural city in the middle of California had long served as a corridor for cocaine, heroin, weed, and methamphetamine smugglers, as traffickers from the southern border made their way to buyers in the Northwest and on the East Coast.
- Monero’s ring signatures, stealth addresses, and RingCT ensure untraceable trades.
- Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Georgia identified an AlphaBay staffer living in the United States.
- However, businesses remain prime targets for data breaches, ransomware, and account takeovers.
Key Features Of AlphaBay (Post-Revival)
After almost two months of operation, the market has a handful of vendors, with only a couple of hundred listings across drugs and fraud goods. DeSnake claims there have been 15,000 user accounts created, 450 vendors registered, and over 400 listings published as of the time of writing. Operation Bayonet, which would ultimately lead to the shutdown of several prominent marketplaces, began with Dutch police seizing another lesser-known market called Hansa Market. After compromising Hansa, authorities secretly operated the market for almost a month. While the Dutch focussed their efforts on Hansa, United States FBI operatives coordinated with international police to DDoS AlphaBay and seize its assets, enabling the Royal Thai Police to locate and arrest its administrator, Alexander Cazes (a.k.a. alpha02). The takedown of AlphaBay, along with the takeover of the dark web marketplace Hansa Market in a related operation, damaged user trust in the dark web, which is necessary for dark web marketplaces to operate.
Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office Takes Down Hydra Darknet Marketplace
The administrators of Hansa Market, along with its thousands of vendors and users, also attempted to mask their identities to avoid prosecution through the use of Tor and digital currency. Further information on the operation against the Hansa Market can be obtained from Dutch authorities. Examples include the sale of high-quality products with low risk for contamination (including lacing and cutting), vendor-tested products, sharing of trip reports, and online discussion of harm reduction practices. Some health professionals such as “DoctorX” provide information, advice and drug-testing services on the darknet.140 The quality of products is attributed to the competition and transparency of darknet markets139 which involve user feedback and reputation features.
Last week, two men, both in custody, were charged in federal court in Chicago with operating “Empire Market,” a dark web marketplace that enabled users to buy and sell more than $430 million in illegal goods and services around the world. Deep web marketplaces are online marketplaces where people can buy and sell illicit goods and services under the protection of the anonymity of the dark web. The goods and services on offer range from leaked credit card details, exploit kits, and hackers for hire to advertisements for hitmen services. About a week ago AlphaBay, the dark web’s largest contraband marketplace, went mysteriously offline. Rumors swirled that it had run off with its customers’ money, or was down for maintenance.
Established in 2021, our platform implements advanced privacy protections including mandatory PGP encryption and multi-signature escrow systems. The closure of AlphaBay represented a massive victory for law enforcement agencies, but it also illustrated a persistent challenge they face in the continuously evolving landscape of cybercrime. While AlphaBay’s takedown was a step in the right direction, it did not extinguish the demand for illegal goods and services on the dark web.
Dell Customer Data Breach (
The migration of buyers and sellers comes as authorities around the world crack down on digital marketplaces that cater to growing numbers of shadowy sales. By comparison, Silk Road had just 14,000 when the Federal Bureau of Investigation closed it four years ago. Authorities shuttered AlphaBay, the largest online marketplace for illegal goods, on July 4, and took down Hansa, the third largest, on Thursday. The sites, where people could buy drugs, guns and child pornography, had flourished since 2014, when a predecessor, Silk Road, was shut down. Established in 2019, Russian Market is a well-known and highly regarded data store on the dark web, specializing in the sale of PII and various forms of stolen data. Despite its name, the marketplace operates primarily in English and serves a global audience.
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In July 2017, police in the US and Europe, including the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Agency, Europol and the Dutch National Police, partnered to take down the site. AlphaBay’s servers were seized with the help of authorities in Thailand, Lithuania, Canada, the United Kingdom and France. The operation included the arrest of suspected AlphaBay founder Alexandre Cazes on 5 July, detained on behalf of the US in Thailand. He was held by the Royal Thai Police for approximately seven days before apparently committing suicide while in custody on 12 July 2017. Attorney’s Office of the Eastern District of California filed a civil forfeiture complaint against Mr. Cazes and his wife. According to another complaint affidavit filed in the Middle District of Florida against Jeremy Achey, an investigation into a fentanyl overdose death in Orange County, Florida, on February 27, revealed that the lethal substance was purchased on AlphaBay from Achey.
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In May 2024, Ticketmaster faced a significant data breach affecting millions of customers. Dark web listings surfaced almost immediately after the breach, advertising this information for sale to cybercriminals. Alphabay Market was originally operating from 2014 to 2017 with alpha02 and DeSnake as admins and was the biggest darknet market in history.
Who Were The Masterminds Behind These Dark Web Marketplaces?
The website allegedly trafficked in illegal drugs, stolen documents, counterfeit goods and “other computer hacking tools, firearms, and toxic chemicals throughout the world,” according to the Justice Department. Officials say that around the time it was shuttered, AlphaBay boasted “250,000 listings for illegal drugs and toxic chemicals,” as well as upwards of 100,000 other illicit items. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announces the takedown of AlphaBay, a massive darknet marketplace “used to sell deadly illegal drugs” and procure stolen and counterfeit goods, according to the Justice Department.
Investigation And Law Enforcement Actions
The service on Tor appears to be hosted alongside Dread services and features both the Dread waiting queue and clock-captcha for DDoS protection. The marketplace was offline last week, when Dread and its sister services were under heavy DDoS and inaccessible. In early August 2021, DeSnake resurfaced on Dread, the popular Reddit-like discussion forum on the darknet administrated and moderated by users, Hugbunter and Paris. Dread staff “vouched” for DeSnake to skeptical darknet users with DeSnake signing documents using their historical PGP key. AlphaGuard is a technology that allows users to withdraw funds and the server hosting the market to self-destruct in case of any unexpected changes to any or all of the servers. Only those with administrative access such as DeSnake had the ability to disable it, by entering a key within 72 hours.
Sellers couldn’t just take the money and run — they had to fulfill the order for the transaction to be completed. DarkOwl has assigned assets to monitoring and collecting data from the new AlphaBay Marketplace, leveraging our darknet intelligence capabilities, despite their increased crawler detection measures and ongoing server instability. Our analysts will continue to follow this market’s presence and reputation on the darknet, and provide further updates as this story unfolds. One user openly joked they would stick to purchasing their drugs on social media. Like the historic AlphaBay, the market’s forum is located on the same domain as the market and has limited discussions. Most of the forum is marked private until the user formally introduces themselves in accordance with the rules outlined by DeSnake.
With 8,000+ users and 600+ vendors, it commands a 10% share of darknet drug trades—a rising star since 2023. Your definitive guide to the top darknet marketplaces of 2025—featuring verified onion routing links, cryptocurrency trading insights, vendor ratings, and escrow security details. According to a newly filed superseding indictment, Thomas Pavey and Raheim Hamilton, owned and operated Empire Market from 2018 to 2020, during which time they facilitated approximately four million transactions between vendors and buyers valued at more than $430 million.
Top Markets
It has an active forum and community along with an extensive user vetting process. Some are looking for illegal stuff they can’t buy elsewhere, like drugs or counterfeit documents. It was the first big site where people could anonymously buy drugs using Bitcoin, and it gained a lot of attention, until it was shut down by the FBI in 2013.
In 2025, 95% of markets prefer XMR over BTC’s public ledger, with transaction volume up 60% since 2023. Incognito Market added two-factor authentication to strengthen privacy across its 20,000+ listings. Alphabay rose to prominence with 400,000+ users and $600M yearly trades, ending in a 2017 bust. In 2014, Rabenn began forming his dark-web strike force, inviting local investigators from Fresno’s Homeland Security Investigations and IRS Criminal Investigations offices to join.
WizardShop has solidified its status as one of the best data stores in the dark web by providing an impressive quantity of quality data as well as providing a trustworthy, easy to use interface allowing criminals easy and secure buying and selling. Established in 2022, Torzon market is one of the biggest and most diverse marketplaces on the dark web. It is considered very secure thanks to strict user validations and transparent payment and vendor review procedures. Due to its extensive inventory and reputation for reliability, Brian’s Club has maintained a significant presence on the dark web.
