AlphaBay Kingpin “Alpha02” Arrested
on July 5, 2017: The Darknet’s Biggest Takedown
He was sitting
inside his luxury villa in Bangkok and using his laptop when suddenly he heard
a loud sound of an incident from outside. He was unaware that his luxurious
life was going to end in a few minutes. That person left his laptop open and
ran outside. A girl had driven her Toyota Camry through his gate, but in
reality, the police of the entire 7 countries were waiting for this day for
many years.
This was the
morning of 5th July 2017 in Bangkok, and the person we are talking about was
not an ordinary person; he lived the life of a multimillionaire king, and he
spent his morning, afternoon, and evening in different expensive cars. In the
eyes of the world, he was a software developer and in reality, he was known as
the king of dark web, the person who had kept his identity hidden for many
years, made a small mistake and took away all his property, money, cars and his
life till here, now he had made a small mistake and with the collaboration of 7
countries of the world he exposed the dark web king from all over the world.
This was in
2010, when the dark web was slowly rising. The dark web is another side of the
internet world where all kinds of illegal activities take place, from the
purchase of drugs and weapons to giving contracts for target killing; the
entire black market takes place here. Such works take place here that it is
even difficult for us to believe them after hearing them. There is a special
reason for all such works happening on the dark web. Those doing illegal work
across the world want to hide their identity so that they do not fall into the
hands of the police and law enforcement agencies. And on the dark web, these
issues of theirs seemed to be getting resolved forever, just as we use normal
Google for normal Google browsing on the internet. Chrome browser is used,
similarly to browse dark web websites, special browsers are used which protect
the identity of the users through many servers, one of them is named TOR
BROWSER.
There was not
much excitement about the dark web before 2010, but after that, with the advent
of cryptocurrencies, the issue of transferring payments for illegal trades was
also resolved, because it was impossible for the authorities to trace the cryptocurrencies.
All the issues of illegal trades on the dark web were resolved, the identities
of the contractors were also saved, and transferring payments was also quite safe.
Now, only one thing was needed, which was a good and reputable platform or a
dark website. The first dark website to be created was called Silk Road,
which gained a lot of success in the dark world of the internet. It started in
February 2011, and as soon as it was launched, one million customers started
using it, but after 2.5 years, the owner of Silk Road got caught and
closed the website.
And because
there was a lot of demand for this business, after the closure of this website,
within a few days, many websites were launched, which included a website named Silk
Road 2.0, Evolution. On these websites, customers used to give their
bitcoins to the platforms for selling, and after purchasing, they used to give
the bitcoins to the seller after taking a commission from the platforms. Now
why does it happen here if it's all black business, then often the website
operators used to take all the money of the customers and run away after
closing the website, who also get exit scams, anyway no one knew them and
tracing them through the dark web was also an impossible task, hence in the
case of exit scams, drug dealers simply shifted to other platforms in the
starting years of the dark web here There were many exit scam platforms which
were capable of getting honorarium and hacking was very common here there was
need for a reputable and trusted platform and this was the time when in 2014 a
dark website with the name ALPHABAY was launched on the dark web, no one
knew the name or location of the people who launched it, they used to identify
themselves with the name of ALPHA02.
In the
beginning, only information about stolen credit cards used to spread on ALPHABAY,
but later on, the sale and purchase of other products also started here, like
money laundering and drugs. There were some such things that were not allowed
to trade on ALPHABAY. Why was it so about child abuse and details of
stolen Russian bank accounts? ALPHA02 did not want to mess with Russian
law enforcement agencies, or he wanted to show the USA law enforcement agencies
that he is running this while sitting with Russia, of course, where the USA has
no hold. In the same year, ALPHABAY started its foothold on the dark
web. In the same year, there were 2 lac customers and more than 40 thousand
sellers in his black business. Started doing it peacefully.
By 2017, more
than 3 lakh items were listed on ALPHABAY, and items worth 5 lakh
dollars started getting sold daily. ALPHA02, which nobody knew, started
earning 6 lakh dollars a month from these sales, and within no time, it became
the sole king of the dark web world. ALPHABAY had become the biggest
marketplace of the dark web, in which a trust level was created between the
dealers and the customers. Through all this, law enforcement agencies from all
over the world were trying to know the real identity of ALPHA02, but the
investigation had been failing till now. American investigators wanted to know
the server location of ALPHABAY so that they could raid the data center
and shut down the platform. Go through this, and there would also be a chance
to reach ALPHA02. Normally it is not that difficult to find out the
server location of any website i.e. the place where the website is hosted, but
because dark websites can be accessed only through the TOR BROWSER which
keeps the location of the real website hidden behind random servers from all
over the world, it was the reason why it was impossible to reach the ALPHABAY
of the American investigator.
He began
purchasing drugs by using ALPHABAY as usual in the hopes that we could contact
the drug dealer if he made a mistake, but this would only lead to the drug
dealer being caught while the authorities were searching for ALPHABAY'S
mastermind, ALPHA02, who was taking a lot of precautions in this matter.
He knew all the ways to survive in this dark world. In the previous years, he
did not commit even a small mistake that could give any hint to the
authorities, but then in 2017, the authorities got a way to reach ALPHA02.
Robert Miller, an officer of the DEA, i.e., Drug Enforcement Administration,
was sitting in front of the computer in search of ALPHA02 when suddenly
he received an email. In this email, something was written about ALPHA02,
and the person who sent the email was an unknown person. Now you all must know
that normally, whenever one registers on any website, a welcome email comes.
Similarly, this person also received a welcome email from ALPHABAY when
this platform was newly launched in 2014, and the address from which this
welcome email came was PIMP_ALEX_91@HOTMAIL.COM. Although this mistake
was fixed later on, the person who sent the tip kept this real welcome email
saved. It was he who shared the email with DEA officer Robber Miller. It
did not matter who the person sending the email was, a competitor of ALPHABAY,
a customer, or a drug dealer, because now the DEA had gotten the first
and most important information about ALPHA02.
Which was a
great achievement for him. Using this email address, he signed up on many
social media platforms. skyrock.com was a French social media platform
on which he signed up with the name ALEX through this email address, and
the investigation team also found ALEX's photos from 2008 and 2009,
which were of ALPHA02 only. A dating profile was also linked to this
email address, in which ALEX had written the name of his hometown, Trois-Rivieres,
which is a city in Canada. According to this 2008 profile, he was 17 years old
at that time, and 91 is his year of birth in the email address. Using the same
email, he signed up on many social media platforms in 2008. He also posted on a
French technology forum in which his username was ALPHA02, while at the
end of the post, his real name was written as ALEXANDRE CAZES.
The authorities
had the real name of ALPHA02, but where is it? On his LinkedIn profile,
Alexander showed himself as a software designer when he got the most
important clue about his current location from Facebook. The authorities found
the profile of a girl from Thailand on Facebook who was ALEXANDRE'S wife.
Incidentally, ALEXANDRE must have been living in Thailand. With the help
of this tip, American authorities reached Bangkok, and after meeting with the
Thai authorities, they found out where ALEXANDRE had acquired properties
in Bangkok. This was not the time to catch him, but to keep an eye on him
secretly. He had a villa where he lived with his wife. Secondly, the mention of
3 million dollars was outside Bangkok, where he used to enjoy his pleasures. He
was going to build a holiday home in Phuket and a villa in Cyprus. The agents
started keeping an eye on all his movements.
He used to go
around in his Lamborghini, completely unaware that agents from Thailand,
America, and Canada were keeping an eye on his movements. In his daily life,
the king of the dark web was a normal person. He would wake up early in the
morning and stay at home the whole day. In the midst of all this, the
authorities started making plans to arrest him. But the issue was that if he
was arrested like this, it would not be proved in court that these persons are
the owners of ALPHABAY. That is why the investigation team wanted to
capture him when he was working on his laptop. ALPHABAY was undoubtedly the
best marketplace of the dark web, but it had a big competitor in Europe. In the
name of HANSA.
There was a
famous dark website which had given a tough time to the European authorities. The
European investigators had a significant success at the same time that the
Americans were preparing to arrest ALEXANDRE, the owner of ALPHABAY'S.
They discovered the HANSA market's server location. Because there would
be no advantage to shutting down the HANSA Market servers, they wanted
to relaunch the market on new servers with the assistance of an informant. They secretly copied the data from its servers,
and after intercepting the admin's chat, they succeeded in finding out that the
owner of HANSA Market lives in Germany. The European authorities, in
collusion with the German federal criminal police, arrested the owner of HANSA
Market. They started the effort to do this, and during this time, America's FBI
informed the European authorities that they were going to arrest ALPHA02
and shut down ALPHABAY.
The American,
European, and German authorities, with a total of 7 countries' authorities,
wanted to give a new name to this operation, which was named OPERATION
BEYONET. The plane claims that until we take control of the European HANSA
market, European authorities instructed the FBI not to detain ALPHA02. This
was a very clever decision of the agencies. On the dark web, dealers and
customers typically just move to another website, HANSA Market, when one
website goes down. All of the dealers will move to HANSA Market, which will
already be governed by European authorities, once ALPHABAY is shut down,
because the other website was a dark one. This will make it possible to
apprehend thousands of new dealers. It
was a trap; amidst all this, ALEXANDER CAZES did not know anything; he
was busy with his pleasures in Bangkok. The first phase of the mission was
completed successfully on June 20, 2017.
At the same
time, European authorities raided the data center of HANSA Market in the
Netherlands, and at the same time, German authorities siegei the city in
Germany and Cologne city arrested its owners, but this news was not made
public. Nobody on the dark web was aware that the HANSA Market was now
governed by European authorities. Preparations to arrest ALEXANDRE CAZES,
the other member of the mission, started in Bangkok. DEA, FBI, and other authorities were planning
to catch Alexandre within the range when his laptop and mobile were open. For
this purpose, they made one of their female agents sit in the Toyota Camry and
gave her the task that she should go to ALEXANDRE'S villa, cause an
accident, and hit the car at his gate. But let me put it this way, what would
have happened was that inside alpha02 or ALEXANDRE suddenly left
everything open and came out, by chance it happened just as it was planned.
On the morning
of July 5, 2017, when the gate hit her with a Toyota Camry from the ALPHA02
villa, he left his laptop open and ran outside, taking the unlocked mobile and
going out. At that time, several officers caught him and went inside and took
control of his laptop, in which the control panel of ALPHABAY was open. ALEXANDRE
was caught in cages, and his hands were captured. All of his passwords were
copied by the authorities after they examined the laptop. Millions of dollars'
worth of his properties, vehicles, and cryptocurrency were seized. And that's not all. ALEXANDRE was about
to die before appearing in court. It had been only a week since ALEXANDRE
was arrested that he gave himself up in custody. He committed suicide by
hanging himself from the fan, just a small mistake. The king of the dark web
did everything till his life was taken away. After shutting down ALPHABAY,
it was thought that all the dealers kept the HANSA market, which was
itself under the control of the European authorities, and thousands of new
dealers were also caught.
And after that,
HANSA Market was also closed forever. On the same day, the US Justice
Department officially held a press conference regarding these operations and
shared the news of closing down 2 other platforms of the dark web with the
media.
I hope you
liked this real story. To read more such real stories, visit our website.
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