AlphaBay and Hansa, the two out of three largest dark web market were shutdown as announced by The Department of Justice and Europol on Thursday the 20th of July 2017.
These markets have several thousands of customer's trying to by illegal goods online. As you purchase just electronics, clothes and groceries online, it gets more complicated when it comes to illegal goods such as drugs, weapons and stolen identity. These contraband merchants hideout is the dark we, a part of the internet accessible only with certain browsers such as Tor. Buyers and sellers can not be traced so is the payment which is done through bitcoin.
""I believe that because of this operation, the American people are safer from the threat of identity fraud and malware, and safer from deadly drugs," attorney general Jeff Sessions said at a press conference Thursday. He called the bust one of the "most important criminal cases" of the year.
The website made $1 billion in sales before it was shut down in a joint operation of the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Agency, Dutch police and Europol.
"They coordinated a takedown and have punched a big hole in the operating ability of drug traffickers and other serious criminals around the world," Europol director Rob Wainwright said.
Visitors first noticed AlphaBay was down on July 5, when Alexandre Cazes, better known as Alpha02, the website's creator and admin, was arrested in Thailand. On July 12, he was found dead while in custody there, in an apparent suicide. Frequent AlphaBay users were concerned that the shutdown was an "exit scam," in which a market owner takes the money and runs" CNET news.