AlphaBay Update: Alleged Co-Founder Dies in Thailand Jail as Law Enforcement Shuts Down Dark Web Marketplace
More than a week after AlphaBay went offline, reports have surfaced that a law enforcement operation has closed down what was once the largest contraband market in the dark web. One of its alleged administrators was later found dead in a Bangkok jail after apparently committing suicide.
Details on the fate of AlphaBay have just started trickling in as reports of an international law enforcement effort took in one of the site's administrators, as reported by the Wall Street Journal via The Verge.
While Canadian police has reportedly seized the AlphaBay servers in Quebec, United States law enforcement have worked with Thailand authorities to extradite Canadian citizen Alexandre Cazes, one of the alleged operators of the site.
Cazes was arrested in Bangkok on July 5 on drug-related charges. Arrangements were being discussed for his return to the U.S. when he was found dead on Wednesday, July 12, in what appears to be a suicide, according to the Bangkok Post.
He was reportedly found dead and hanging using a towel around his neck at about 7 a.m. Bangkok time. Cazes was locked up alone in the cell, and the towel was his own personal item, according to the local police. Surveillance camera footage of his cell revealed no sign of a physical attack.
Police Major General Surasak Khunnarong said that the 26-year-old computer expert was set to meet a public prosecutor who would have arranged for his extradition to the U.S.
AlphaBay is alleged to have dealt with not just drugs, but also stolen credit card numbers and similar contraband, according to Wired.
According to Nicolas Christin, computer science and public policy professor at Carnegie Mellon, the site had nearly 300,000 listings of illicit items bringing in between $600,000 to $800,000 a day in revenue at its peak.
The high technology crime division of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are currently gathering evidence from Cazes' place in Trois-Rivières, Quebec, in the hopes of finding clues leading to the other AlphaBay operators.
