Just last week, German police led what was reportedly the largest-ever Deep Web drugs bust, swooping in on the drug-distribution ring "Shiny Flakes." Authorities seized more than $4 million worth of drugs, which "Shiny Flakes" had intended to distribute through Evolution.
At press time bitcoin was worth $281 and dropping, according to CoinDesk stats, down from $291 on Tuesday. The price of bitcoin could well drop as a result of the disappearance, as it has done when previous marketplaces have closed. Krebs believes the apparent scam could have a knock-on effect beyond the Deep Web community. "It just makes me sick that some people are losing thousands of $$$. "This makes me so angry and I don't even have any BTC in Evolution," another wrote.
Once that time passes - my crystal ball starts talking and unless you've changed identities and moved, you will be F-D." One warned that Kimble and Verto had "24 hours (and that is being generous) to make this right and re-open the market, and allow people access to their funds. To give an idea of scale, there were more than 20,000 separate product listings on the site.Ĭommunity members are furious. The staff member posting on Reddit alone claimed to have lost $20,000 worth of bitcoin as a result. Krebs, the security researcher, suggests it's more than $12 million. It's difficult to estimate precisely how much bitcoin Verto and Kimble have made off with if this is a scam - though it's certain to be in the range of millions of dollars. Verto is joined on Evolution by a second administrator, Kimble.ĭrugs intended for sale on Evolution seized in a German police raid last week.Īn Evolution volunteer moderator posted on Reddit on Tuesday night that "the admins are preparing to exit scam with all the funds" and that "not a single withdrawal has gone through in almost a week." Upon being confronted, the administrators "confirmed they are doing it right now," the person wrote, later adding that "yes, this is real, no this isn't maintenance." Verto is also far more mercenary in his or her approach to business, previously operating a "carding" forum that helped facilitate identity theft. Whereas the original Silk Road's administrator Dread Pirate Roberts (Ulbricht, according to prosecutors) was outspokenly political, the Evolution administrator Verto is far more reserved, avoiding all publicity and press requests. Since then, Evolution grew to become one of the largest illicit marketplaces on the Deep Web. The Silk Road successor Silk Road 2.0 was shut down, and alleged administrator Blake Benthall was arrested, along with more than a dozen others around the world. In November, a year to the day after Ulbricht was first arrested, a coalition of international law-enforcement groups swooped in on hundreds of Deep Web sites in Operation Onymous. After Silk Road's closure in November 2013, there has been a concerted clampdown by global authorities on Deep Web drug vendors. The best known of the Deep Web marketplaces was undoubtedly Silk Road - the libertarian-tinged drugs free-for-all that Ross Ulbricht was convicted of running earlier this year. Security researcher Brian Krebs writes that more than $12 million worth of bitcoin may have disappeared in the apparent scam. Greenberg reported that the site, which holds vendors' bitcoin funds in escrow, halted withdrawals over the weekend, citing "technical difficulties." The site then disappeared on Tuesday night. In addition to drugs, Evolution sold hacking tutorials, stolen goods, weapons, and an array of other hard-to-find contraband.īut now the marketplace and its accompanying forum have vanished. It functioned as a kind of eBay for drugs and illicit substances: After registering an account for free, users could browse thousands of user-submitted listings, buy products with the digital currency bitcoin, and leave ratings and reviews on vendors' pages.
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The top Deep Web drugs marketplace, Evolution, suddenly vanished overnight, Wired's Andy Greenberg reported, in what appears to be a scam.Įvolution was accessible only through the anonymous web-browsing software Tor. It often indicates a user profile.Įcstasy was just one of the dozens of illicit drugs available to buy from hundreds of anonymous vendors on Evolution. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.
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