AlphaBay operated on dark web, trading in drugs, hacking tools and other illegal items:
The U.S. Justice Department said on Thursday it had shut down the dark web marketplace AlphaBay, working with international partners to knock offline the site accused of allowing hundreds of thousands of people to buy and sell drugs, firearms, computer hacking tools and other illicit goods.
AlphaBay and Hansa Market were two of the top three criminal marketplaces on the dark web, Europol chief Rob Wainwright said at the news conference. The international operation to seize AlphaBay's servers also involved authorities in Thailand, Lithuania, Canada, Britain and France.
The operation included the arrest on July 5 of suspected AlphaBay founder Alexandre Cazes, a Canadian citizen arrested on behalf of the United States in Thailand.
Cazes, 25, apparently took his own life a week later while in Thai custody, the Justice Department said. He faced charges relating to narcotics distribution, identity theft, money laundering and related crimes.
FBI acting director Andrew McCabe said AlphaBay was 10 times as large as Silk Road, a dark website the agency shut down in 2013.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/alpha-bay-doj-us-illegal-online-marketplace-dark-web-1.4213901