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 shutdown of AlphaBay marks a significant moment in the landscape of the deep web, highlighting both the vulnerabilities within illegal marketplace platforms and the efforts of law enforcement to tackle cybercrime.
The Top 7 Dark Web Marketplaces In 2025
Unfortunately, DeSnake’s contributions written in a mixture of English and Russian backfired and senior members of XSS berated them for their lack of operational security and inability to properly understand the dynamics of the Russian language. DeSnake joined the conversation, creating an account with his moniker on September 12, 2021 in attempts to mitigate the marketplace’s potential reputation damage. DeSnake repeatedly pointed to their vouches from Dread and old PGP key pasted to Ghostbin, paste site. As recently as last year, a California Court sentenced Brian Herrell, a Colorado native and AlphaBay moderator who operated under the moniker “Botah” to 11 years in prison for racketeering and for his connections to AlphaBay. Upon his initial arrest, reports suggested he faced up to 20 years for his involvement in the marketplace. In 2016, an angry user of AlphaBay known as “Kinger” stated that alpha02 had left the market in late 2015, sold his stake to DeSnake, and DeSnake was supposedly acting as admin for its final two years.
What’s The Benefit Of Escrow Security?
The security of the marketplace has been taken very seriously, it’s been run by mature admins and moderators and it’s one of the market who is pushing the use of I2P network over Tor. AlphaBay is currently accepting only Monero as a payment option for it’s transactions and whole market is forcing the use of PGP which helps in the long run with the security. Our conclusion is that AB is currently very well trusted and can be used without any fear of being scammed. Please keep in mind that this is our own review, we do not endorse use of this market. Administration is the same as before but all staff members have been replaced for security reasons. Trusted members have been chosen to be moderators, people which I have verified through business dealings over many years.
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Abacus Market stands out with 35,000+ listings and $5 million in monthly cryptocurrency trades via Bitcoin (BTC) and Monero (XMR). Serving 15,000+ users and 1,200+ vendors, it holds an 8% share of darknet drug trading. Known for its robust escrow security and diverse offerings, Abacus is a top choice for 2025.
- According to complaints filed at the District of South Carolina, an investigation into an overdose death involving a synthetic opioid exposed that the drugs were purchased on AlphaBay.
- “I had given Cazes many ‘holy grails’ of anonimity, but he chose to use only certain things while he branded other methods/ways as ‘overkill,’” DeSnake writes, in his seemingly foreign-inflected and occasionally misspelled English.
- The site became a hub for vendors and buyers alike, providing a secure environment that facilitated anonymous transactions through cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
- Never log in with your real name or reuse passwords from other accounts.
- Potentially other marketplaces will join the network as it mitigates their requirements and risk of arrest without giving up management control (disputes, what is allowed to be sold, hiring of staff, setting fees, control of their profit wallets etc).
Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California filed a civil forfeiture complaint against Alexandre Cazes and his wife’s assets located throughout the world, including in Thailand, Cyprus, Lichtenstein, and Antigua & Barbuda. Cazes and his wife amassed numerous high value assets, including luxury vehicles, residences and a hotel in Thailand. Cazes also possessed millions of dollars in cryptocurrency, which has been seized by the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). 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.
Shuttered Dark Web Marketplaces
It’s not as community-driven as Bohemia, but the polish makes up for it—feels like a pro operation, not a fly-by-night deal. If you’re after a darknet market with variety and a forward-thinking edge, Tor2door Market’s a contender—watch it close in 2025 as that AI kicks in. Your definitive guide to the top darknet marketplaces of 2025—featuring verified onion routing links, cryptocurrency trading insights, vendor ratings, and escrow security details. Dive into the dark pool trading world with Abacus, Alphabay, Torrez, and more. Beginning in September 2021, Abacus Market has established itself as one of the leading dark web marketplaces.
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With advanced dark web monitoring, threat intelligence, and brand protection services, we help you uncover hidden dangers, prevent data breaches, and safeguard your reputation. Our platform ensures that your brand stays one step ahead of cybercriminals, giving you peace of mind in an increasingly complex digital landscape. Explore how Brandefense can empower your brand to thrive securely, even in the shadow of the dark web. AlphaBay was one of the most notorious online marketplaces operating within the deep web, catering to a diverse array of illicit goods and services. Launched in December 2014, it quickly gained prominence due to its user-friendly interface and extensive inventory ranging from drugs to counterfeit currencies.
Two Prongs For Two Darknet Shutdowns
If that AlphaGuard feature doesn’t sound aspirational enough, DeSnake says he’s also in the early stages of a long-term plan to implement a fully decentralized marketplace system, essentially a BitTorrent to the current dark web markets’ Napster. In that hyper-ambitious plan, open source programmers and server operators who independently run hundreds or thousands of servers would be paid a portion of profits for hosting markets that would form a vast dark web network with no single point of failure. Dark web buyers and vendors haven’t exactly flocked back to AlphaBay’s since its return. A few weeks into the relaunch, it has just under 500 listings, compared to more than 350,000 at AlphaBay’s 2017 peak.
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The contract system allows users to make engagements and agree to provide services in the future, according to the terms of the contract. By October 2015, less than a year of operating, AlphaBay already had over 200,000 users. At the time of its closing in July 2017, AlphaBay had over 400,000 active users. Fraud offerings like accounts, bank logs, fullz, and credit cards are second to drugs in terms of number of listings. Just over a year later, however, AlphaBay has emerged as a top, if not the top, illicit marketplace. In fact, since AlphaBay’s August 2021 relaunch, the illicit marketplace landscape has been tumultuous to say the least.
In analyzing user patterns on AlphaBay, it becomes clear how pivotal community interactions were to maintaining user loyalty. Many users relied heavily on reviews and seller ratings, which created a trustworthy environment amidst the anonymity of the dark web. These patterns speak volumes about user behavior—instead of reputation being solely built offline, it became an essential aspect of transactions that kept the marketplace thriving. The global nature of this type of crime requires a level of cooperation amongst law enforcement agencies that is both well organized and timely.
Users will be safe to purchase from multiple markets all without the need of trusting any market with their cryptocurrency or registering for each one individually. Vendors will be able to sell on multiple markets seemlessly or even create their own shop while preserving their anonimity and security. AlphaBay was a prominent online marketplace in the deep web, operating primarily on the dark web and facilitating the exchange of illicit goods and services.
Torzon Market has established itself as a significant player in the darknet ecosystem, offering a secure, user-centric platform for anonymous trading. Its commitment to privacy, diverse product offerings, and robust security measures make it a preferred choice for users seeking discreet transactions within the darknet. In May 2024, Ticketmaster faced a significant data breach affecting millions of customers.
Cazes was found dead of an apparent suicide in a Thai jail cell a week after his arrest; like many in the dark web community, DeSnake believes Cazes was murdered in prison. He was driven to rebuild AlphaBay, he says, after reading about an FBI presentation on the circumstances of Cazes’ arrest that he deemed disrespectful. “AlphaBay name was put in bad light after the raids. I am here to make amends to that.”
Shortly after the breach, a hacker group known as USDoD listed this data on dark web marketplaces, pricing it at a staggering $3.5 million. People have been organizing illicit trades via the Internet since the 1970s. Those early examples, though, were through closed networks, and the actual exchanges of money and goods generally had to take place in person. With the advent of crypto-currencies, it became not only possible to complete trades online without leaving a money trail but easy. As a result, the trading of illegal goods online has become more commonplace, and vast dark web marketplaces have been created.
