The U.S. Department of Justice has succeeded along with international law enforcement agencies in taking down the AlphaBay dark web site.
AlphaBay founder Alexandre Cazes, 26, who was arrested in Thailand on July 5. Cazes was found dead last week in his cell and apparently took his own life.
According to the Justice Dept.'s asset forfeiture complaint, Cazes "opsec" security practices were sloppy enough to get him caught.
In December 2016, law enforcement learned that Cazes personal email "Pimp_Alex_91@hotmail.com" was included in the header of AlphaBay's "Welcome email" to new users in December 2014. Law enforcement subsequently learned the “Pimp_Alex_91@hotmail.com” email address belonged to Alexandre Cazes born 19th October 1991. Cazes also used that same email to link to his PayPal account, which linked to a Canadian bank account in Cazes name.
On 5th July 2017, Thai Police issued an arrest warrant for Alexandre, as well as search warrants at his primary residence. At the time of his arrest, law enforcement discovered Cazes laptop that was logged into the AlphaBay servers. With the computer unlocked, Thai Police found several text files with passwords for the AlphaBay website and all of the servers.
