Operating on the darknet, these markets function much like their legitimate counterparts, such as Amazon or eBay, with sellers listing products and buyers browsing and making purchases. However, their operations are, by design, highly covert and shrouded in secrecy. The majority of transactions are conducted using cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin to ensure a high level of anonymity.

Darknet markets have gained notoriety due to their role in facilitating the illegal drug trade. Platforms like Silk Road, which rose to prominence in 2011, became synonymous with the darknet market phenomenon. Silk Road, in particular, captured the public’s attention by offering a wide range of drugs, from marijuana and ecstasy to cocaine and heroin, packaged and shipped discreetly to buyers worldwide. While law enforcement agencies have successfully shutdown Silk Road and similar dark web markets, new ones always emerge in its place, showcasing the resilience and adaptability of this underground economy.

One of the primary reasons behind the rise of darknet markets is the anonymity they provide. Users can access these platforms using specialized software, like Tor, which conceals their IP address and makes it nearly impossible to identify either the buyers or sellers. As a result, darknet markets have transformed into a virtual safe haven for criminals, allowing them to peddle illegal goods and services without fear of detection.

However, it is essential to recognize that not all transactions on these markets revolve around illicit activities. While the majority do, some users utilize darknet markets for legitimate purposes, such as freedom of speech in oppressive regimes or as a means to transact privately in censorship-heavy countries. These individuals benefit from the potential privacy and security offered by the darknet, although they remain a minority within this murky ecosystem.

The existence of darknet markets poses significant challenges for law enforcement agencies worldwide. The inherent anonymity of these platforms makes it incredibly difficult to track down and apprehend those involved in illegal activities. Law enforcement efforts to combat the darknet are complicated by the decentralized nature of these markets, with servers and operations scattered globally, making it challenging to target them effectively.

Moreover, the darknet market operates on an ever-evolving frontier, constantly adapting to law enforcement tactics. Cryptocurrencies, dark web markets like Bitcoin, further boost the resilience and longevity of these markets by enabling secure, anonymous transactions, untethered from traditional banking systems. Pairing this with encrypted communication channels and advanced malware-resistant technologies, it becomes clear why darknet markets have proven so elusive to authorities.

Despite the challenges, global law enforcement agencies have made notable strides in combating the darknet market phenomenon. By deploying specialized cybercrime units and utilizing advanced intelligence techniques, authorities have successfully dismantled some of the most prominent darknet markets. However, it remains an ongoing battle, as new markets continue to crop up, perpetuating the cycle of illegal online commerce.

As the darknet continues to evolve and adapt, society must remain vigilant against the dangers it harbors. Governments and law enforcement agencies need to invest in the development of new technologies and strategies to stay one step ahead of the criminals operating in the shadows. Meanwhile, users must exercise caution and refrain from engaging in illegal activities that propagate the darknet’s nefarious reputation.

The darknet market phenomenon provides a stark reminder of the ongoing struggle between privacy and security. While it offers a haven for illegal activities, it also showcases the need for individuals to protect their privacy and maintain a level of anonymity when conducting lawful and legitimate online interactions. Striking the right balance between privacy and security will undoubtedly remain an ongoing challenge as technology advances and society grapples with its implications.

The post Dark Markets 2024 Tip: Be Consistent appeared first on The News Max.

In the underbelly of the internet lies a hidden world known as the darknet, where anonymity reigns supreme, and illicit activities thrive. One of the most notorious aspects of this clandestine network is the darknet markets, where users can buy and darknet marketplace sell a wide range of illegal products and services. This article aims to shed light on this shadowy realm, examining its inner workings while also acknowledging the ethical concerns surrounding it.

Understanding darknet market Markets

Darknet markets are online platforms accessible via encryption software like Tor, creating an anonymous environment for users to browse and exchange illicit goods and services. These markets offer various items, including narcotics, counterfeit money, stolen data, hacking tools, counterfeit documents, forged passports, weapons, and more. Some darknet markets even provide assassination services, highlighting the extent to which illegal activities are facilitated within these digital marketplaces.

Structure and Functioning

darknet market markets function similarly to legal e-commerce platforms but are primarily designed to protect the identity of both buyers and sellers. Cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin, is the preferred mode of payment, as it further enhances the anonymity of transactions. These markets employ several security measures, such as escrow systems and user reputation systems, to safeguard against scams and police infiltration.

Challenges and Risks

While the darknet market presents a growing industry, it comes with inherent risks. One of the most prominent challenges is law enforcement agencies actively monitoring these platforms. Over the years, several high-profile darknet markets have been shut down, resulting in the arrests of numerous users and administrators involved in illegal activities. However, the resilient darknet community continuously adapts, migrating to new platforms and employing advanced encryption technology to evade detection.

Ethical Concerns

darknet sites markets, by their very nature, aid and abet illegal activities. The availability of narcotics, weapons, and stolen data contributes to the perpetuation of drug addiction, violent crime, and cybercrime. Furthermore, these markets provide a platform for human trafficking, extremist ideologies, and terror financing. Critics argue that the existence of such platforms on the internet poses a significant threat to global security and ethics.

The Ongoing Battle

Governments around the world are engaged in an ongoing battle to combat darknet markets. While law enforcement agencies have scored significant victories, the lucrative nature of these markets makes it challenging to fully eradicate them. Additionally, the decentralized nature of the darknet, coupled with ever-advancing technologies, creates a persistent challenge. It is evident that a multi-pronged approach involving international cooperation, legislation, and technological advancements is crucial to tackling this shadowy realm effectively.

Conclusion

Darknet markets represent the darker side of the internet, challenging law enforcement agencies and ethical norms. While they operate in the murky corners of the digital world, these platforms cannot be ignored as they facilitate a wide range of illegal activities. It is imperative for governments, tech companies, and citizens worldwide to stay vigilant, collaborate, and work towards curbing this dangerous underworld while also addressing the root causes that fuel its existence. Only through concerted efforts can we hope to protect the integrity and safety of the internet.

The post The Unadvertised Details Into Darkmarkets That Most People Don’t Know About appeared first on The News Max.

What do Dunkin’ Donuts, darknet market markets url Fortnite, Sprint and the Dow Jones company all have in common? They’ve all suffered from massive hacks in 2019 alone.

After every data breach, darknet sites victim data often surfaces on the encrypted “hidden” internet known as the , a network of sites that can only be accessed with . dark web marketplaces web markets operate like the ecommerce websites we shop on every day, but often trade in illicit goods like drugs, weapons and stolen data.

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Finding our personal data on the dark web market urls web was far too…

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Because so many companies now capture and store personal information, hacking has become a profitable profession, darknet market site said Terbium Labs vice president of research Emily Wilson. One hacker known as Gnosticplayers has allegedly leaked over 840 million user records. His most recent dump of 26.42 million records .

“The dark web has provided the raw materials that these fraudsters need to build out scalable criminal empires,” said Wilson. “We’re talking about identity theft of millions of people, including children.”

Though the stakes are high for

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Heather Morgan was freed by a judge Monday, pending trial by a federal court.

But her husband Ilya Lichtenstein remains behind bars due to prosecutors’ fears that he could seek immunity in , where he is also a citizen.

Judge Beryl Howell said on Monday that 31-year-old Morgan, referred as ‘Razzlekahn’ due to her rapping background, was no longer held in custody after the government deemed that she wasn’t as involved in the planning of the alleged crimes as her 34-year-ld husband, Ilya Lichtenstein, who was largely in control of the funds. 

The judge also considered Morgan’s health issues as a factor, after she had recently had surgery to remove a lump in her breast.

With follow-up appointments expected, she will be closely monitored with an ankle bracelet GPS monitor while she is under house arrest. 

Morgan has also been given restrictions on computer use, and a ban on carrying out cryptocurrency transactions. 

The defense told the court that both defendants would guarantee to appear for all remaining court dates, and darkmarket 2024 pointed out that both of their families, who were in court, were willing to bet their homes on it.

However, Howell finally ruled that there would be a significant ‘flight risk’ for Lichtenstein and agreed with federal prosecutors who insisted that just a portion of the millions in cryptocurrency that the couple stole could buy a new house or ‘buy each of their parents a private island.’ 

The judge also shared her concerns that Lichtenstein, who is a dual citizen of the United States and Russia, could seek refuge in a eastern European country, where he could possibly be granted immunity.

Federal prosecutors also revealed that Lichtenstein had a file on his computer titled ‘passport ideas,’ which included several darknet market vendors that sell passports, bank cards and other forms of identification. 

The New York couple was arrested earlier in February after they conspired to launder cryptocurrency that was stolen during the 2016 hack of Bitfinex, a virtual currency exchange platform, dark market link web darknet market links and currently estimated at $4.5 billion. 

Both are accused of using several techniques to launder Bitcoin, including using fake identifies to create accounts; coding computer programs to execute fast, automated transactions; depositing stolen funds in several accounts across one crypto exchange to cover their previous transactions; converting Bitcoin to other forms of cryptocurrency; and creating U.S.-based business accounts to wire their funds and make them seem legitimate. 

Over five years, a hacker allegedly laundered 119,754 bitcoin through 2,000 transactions on Bitfinex’s website before transferring the crypto funds into Lichtenstein’s digital wallet. 

The couple could face up to 25 years years behind bars if found guilty. 

Bitfinex is a cryptocurrency exchange registered in the British Virgin Islands.

In August 2016, hackers were able to breach its security firewall before stealing about 120,000 bitcoin from its customers.

The amount that was stolen was worth roughly $70 million at the time, when the price of bitcoin was around $600.

At the time, Bitfinex announced to its customers that they would lose 36 percent of their funds to compensate for the losses from the incident.

It also created special digital tokens that were able to keep track of customers’ losses. 

Some of the tokens could exchanged for shares of iFinex, the company that operates Bitfinex, while other tokens could be redeemed if the stolen bitcoins were recovered in the future.

The US Department of Justice announced that it would create a special judicial process for dark market onion victims of the hack to reclaim their losses.

The hackers have never been identified. 

Morgan and Lichtenstein were arrested by federal prosecutors of laundering the bitcoin stolen from Bitfinex, but they are not being accused for actually stealing the bitcoin in the hack.

Authorities were able to recover $3.6B after seizing couple’s private keys to digital wallets after their arrest earlier this month. 

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An Australian man was arrested on Monday accused of running a $220million illegal darkweb marketplace – called the biggest in the world and ‘ for criminals’ – after ha was tracked following the bunker’s discovery. 

The joint investigation by Australian Federal Police, Scotland Yard, the , Europol, darknet market markets onion address and German authorities, among others, arrested the man, 34, as he allegedly tried flee across the Danish border into . 

The man, known only as Julian K, is the alleged operator of DarkMarket and has been detained by German investigators.

DarkMarket was shut down on Monday and its new servers, located in Ukraine and Moldova after relocating from the bunker, were taken off the internet, prosecutors in the city of Koblenz said.

‘Until its closure, DarkMarket was probably the largest marketplace worldwide on the darknet market, with almost 500,000 users and more than 2400 sellers,’ prosecutors said. 

More than 320,000 transactions were conducted via the website including the sale of drugs, counterfeit money, stolen or falsified credit cards, anonymous SIM cards and malware.

The transactions were reportedly worth a total of 4,650 bitcoin and 12,800 monero – two cryptocurrencies – for an equivalent sum of more than $221million. 

The servers will be forensically examined by authorities to uncover information about the website’s operations and criminal network. 

The accused man has already fronted a German court and dark darknet market list been denied bail – to be transferred to a German prison in the next few days. 

He has reportedly refused to speak to investigators or court officials. 

German prosecutors said the man was trying to flee Denmark into Germany when arrested and was travelling through Europe either on holiday or conducting business for the illegal website. 

They said the investigation around DarkMarket originated after the discovery of the data processing centre run by criminals in the 5,000sqm former unused bunker in south-west Germany. 

The data facility hosted illegal websites, which included DarkMarket temporarily, and was shut down in 2019. 

The building, constructed by the West-German military, in the mid-1970s descended five-storeys below the surface and was built with 31inch thick concrete walls to withstand a nuclear blast. 

A meteorological division of the military used the facility after the Cold War until 2012 to forecast weather patterns where German soldiers were deployed. 

The building was sold to a foundation based in Denmark in 2012 after officials could find no other buyers for the vacant facility. 

A number of people were arrested after the discovery of the data centre – accused of being part of a criminal network and being accessories to hundreds of thousands of illegal transactions involving prohibited material such as drugs and hacking tools. 

Some already went on trial in October. 

The darkweb was originally developed for the United States military but has been overrun by criminals because they can conceal their identity on the platform. 

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This is part of our  about how innovators are thinking up new ways to make you — and the world around you — smarter. 

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“Are you a hacker?”

A Las Vegas driver asks me this after I tell him I’m headed to Defcon at Caesars Palace. I wonder if his sweat isn’t just from the 110℉ heat blasting the city.

All week, a cloud of paranoia looms over Las Vegas, as hackers from around the world swarm Sin City for Black Hat and Defcon, two back-to-back cybersecurity conferences taking place in the last week of July. At Caesars Palace, where Defcon is celebrating its 25th anniversary, the UPS store posts a sign telling guests it won’t accept printing requests from USB thumb drives. You can’t be too careful with all those hackers in town.

Everywhere I walk I see hackers — in tin-foiled fedoras, wearing . Mike Spicer, a security researcher, carries a 4-foot-high backpack holding a “Wi-Fi cactus.” Think wires, antennas, colored lights and 25 Wi-Fi scanners that, in seven hours, captured 75 gigabytes of data from anyone foolish enough to use public Wi-Fi. I see a woman thank him for holding the door dark websites open for her, all while his backpack sniffs for unencrypted passwords and personal information it can grab literally out of thin air.

You’d think that, with all the potential threats literally walking about town, Vegas’ director of technology and innovation, Mike Sherwood, would be stressed out. It’s his job to protect thousands of smart sensors around the city that could jam traffic, blast water through pipes or cause a blackout if anything goes haywire.

And yet he’s sitting right in front of me at Black Hat, smiling.

His entire three-person team, in fact, is at Black Hat so they can learn how to stave off future attacks. Machine learning is guarding Las Vegas’ network for them.

Broadly speaking, artificial intelligence refers to machines carrying out jobs that we would consider smart. Machine learning is a subset of AI in which computers learn and adapt for themselves.

Now a number of cybersecurity companies are turning to machine learning in an attempt to stay one step ahead of professionals working to steal industrial secrets, disrupt national infrastructures, hold computer networks for ransom and even influence elections. Las Vegas, which relies on machine learning to keep the bad guys out, offers a glimpse into a future when more of us will turn to our AI overlords for protection.

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Man and machine

At its most basic, machine learning for security involves feeding massive amounts of data to the AI program, which the software then analyzes to spot patterns and recognize what is, and isn’t, a threat. If you do this millions of times, the machine becomes smart enough to prevent intrusions and malware on its own.

Theoretically.

Machine learning naysayers argue that hackers can write malware to trick AI. Sure the software can learn really fast, but it stumbles when it encounters data its creators didn’t anticipate. Remember how trolls turned ? It makes a good case against relying on AI for cybersecurity, where the stakes are so high.

Even so, that has protected Las Vegas’ network and thousands of sensors for the last 18 months.

Since last February, Darktrace has defended the city from cyberattacks, around the clock. That comes in handy when you have only three staffers handling cybersecurity for people, 3,000 employees and thousands of online devices. It was worse when Sherwood joined two years ago.

“That was the time where we only had one security person on the team,” Sherwood tells me. “That was when I thought, ‘I need help and I can’t afford to hire more people.'”

He’d already used Darktrace in his previous job as deputy director of public safety and city technology in Irvine, California, and he thought the software could help in Las Vegas. Within two weeks, Darktrace found malware on Las Vegas’ network that was sending out data.

“We didn’t even know,” Sherwood says. “Traditional scanners weren’t picking it up.”  

Pattern recognition

I’m standing in front of a tattoo parlor in , a little more than 4 miles from Caesars Palace. Across the street, I see three shuttered stores next to two bail bonds shops.

I’m convinced the taxi driver dropped me off at the wrong location.

This is supposed to be Vegas’ $1 million Innovation District project? Where are the in the area? Or the ?

I look again at the Innovation District map on my phone. I’m in the right place. Despite the rundown stores, trailer homes and empty lots, this corner of downtown Vegas is much smarter than it looks.

That’s because hidden on the roads and inside all the streetlights, traffic signals and pipes are thousands of sensors. They’re tracking the air quality, controlling the lights and water, counting the cars traveling along the roads, and providing Wi-Fi.

Officials chose the city’s rundown area to serve as its Innovation District because they wanted to redevelop it, with help from technology, Sherwood says. There’s just one problem: All those connected devices are potential targets for a cyberattack. That’s where Darktrace comes in.

Sherwood willingly banks on Darktrace to protect the city’s entire network because the software comes at machine learning from a different angle. Most machine learning tools rely on brute force: cramming themselves with thousands of terabytes of data so they can learn through plenty of trial and error. That’s how IBM’s Deep Blue computer learned to defeat Garry Kasparov, the world chess champion, in a best-of-seven match in 1997. In the security world, that data describes malware signatures — essentially algorithms that identify specific viruses or worms, for instance.

Darktrace, in contrast, doesn’t look at a massive database of malware that’s come before. Instead, it looks for patterns of human behavior. It learns within a week what’s considered normal behavior for users and sets off alarms when things fall out of pattern, like when someone’s computer suddenly starts encrypting loads of files.

Rise of the machines?

Still, it’s probably too soon to hand over all security responsibilities to artificial intelligence, dark web market urls says  , a security professor and director of Carnegie Mellon University’s CyLab Security and Privacy Institute. He predicts it’ll take at least 10 years before we can safely use AI to keep bad things out.

“It’s really easy for AI to miss things,” Brumley tells me over the phone. “It’s not a perfect solution, and you still need people to make important choices.”

Brumley’s team last year built an AI machine that won beating out other AI entries. A few days later, their contender took on some of the world’s best hackers at Defcon. They came in last.

Sure, machines can help humans fight the scale and speed of attacks, but it’ll take years before they can actually call the shots, says Brumley.

That’s because the model for AI right now is still data cramming, which — by today’s standards — is actually kind of dumb.

But it was still good enough to , making him the de facto poster child for man outsmarted by machine.

“I always remind people it was a rematch, because I won the first one,” he tells me, chuckling, while sitting in a room at Caesars Palace during Defcon. Today Kasparov, 54, is the which is why he’s been giving talks around the country on why humans need to work with AI in cybersecurity.  

He tells me machines can now learn too fast for humans to keep up, no matter if it’s chess or cybersecurity. “The vigilance and the precision required to beat the machine — it’s virtually impossible to reach in human competition,” Kasparov says.

Nobody’s perfect

About two months before Defcon, I’m at Darktrace’s headquarters in New York, where company executives show me how the system works.

On a screen, I see connected computers and printers sending data to Darktrace’s network as it monitors for behavior darknet sites that’s out of the ordinary.  

“For example, Sue doesn’t usually access this much internal data,” Nancy Karches, Darktrace’s sales manager, tells me. “This is straying from Sue’s normal pattern.” So Darktrace shuts down an attack most likely waged by another machine.

“When you have machine-based attacks, the attacks are moving at a machine speed from one to the other,” says Darktrace CEO Nicole Eagan. “It’s hard for humans to keep up with that.”

But what happens when AI becomes the norm? When everyone’s using AI, says Brumley, hackers will turn all their attention on finding the machines’ flaws — something they’re not doing yet.

“We’ve seen again and again, the reason new solutions work better is because attackers aren’t targeting its weaknesses,” he says. “As soon as it became popular, it started working worse and worse.”

About 60 percent of cybersecurity experts at Black Hat believe hackers will use AI for attacks by 2018, according to a survey from the security company Cylance.

“Machine learning security is not foolproof,” says Hyrum Anderson, darknet market links principal data scientist at cybersecurity company Endgame, who and their tools. Anderson expects AI-based malware will rapidly make thousands of attempts to find code that the AI-based security misses.

“The bad guy can do this with trial and error, and it will cost him months,” Anderson says. “The bot can learn to do this, and it will take hours.”

Anderson says he expects cybercriminals will eventually sell AI malware on darknet market markets to wannabe hackers.

For now, Sherwood feels safe having the city protected by an AI machine, which has shielded Las Vegas’ network for the past year. But he also realizes a day will come when hackers could outsmart the AI. That’s why Sherwood and his Las Vegas security team are at Black Hat: to learn how to use human judgment and creativity while the machine parries attacks as rapidly as they come in.

Kasparov has been trying to make that point for the last 20 years. He sees machines doing about 80 percent to 90 percent of the work, but he believes they’ll never get to what he calls “that last decimal place.”

“You will see more and more advanced destruction on one side, and that will force you to become more creative on the positive side,” he tells me.

“Human creativity is how we make the difference.”

: dark web darknet market urls Reporters’ dispatches from the field on tech’s role in the global refugee crisis. 

: CNET hunts for innovation outside the Silicon Valley bubble. 

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Adrian V., 28, a computer technician and the ringleader, led the sexual abuse from a shed belonging to his mother – who fetched the men breakfast as they assaulted the victims

Four paedophiles have been jailed in for raping boys after luring them to a shed where they drugged them and abused them for dark market link darknet market onion days.

Adrian V., 28, a computer technician and the ringleader, led the sexual abuse in a shed belonging to his mother – who fetched the men breakfast as they assaulted the victims.

Along with three other men, Adrian V.

was found to have trapped boys in the garden shed from April 2020, where the victims were drugged and raped over the course of three days.

One of the victims, now 11 years old, was the son of his girlfriend.

Prosecutors presented some 30 hours of video evidence, much of which had been shared in darknet market forums.
The other men are believed to have met Adrian V. online. 

They are Marco Sch., 35, an IT expert from Hanover; Tobias Sch., 30, a craftsman from Hesse; and Enrico L., 42, dark markets 2024 a care provider from Brandenburg. Germany’s privacy laws mean that surnames are not disclosed.

The chief defendant’s mother Carina V., 45, was found to have been aware of the abuse.

The court heard that she had brought the men breakfast while they took turns assaulting the children.  

Presiding judge Matthias Pheiler expressed shock at the ‘horrific events’ covered in the trial, calling the video recordings ‘deeply disturbing’.

‘The proceedings also clearly showed how paedophiles operate: they trick, they lie, they manipulate those around’ the victims, he said, adding that he was repulsed to see that the defendants ‘grinned’ and even ‘laughed loudly’ while evidence against them was presented.

Pheiler said he was relieved none of the victims had had to testify in the trial. 

Adrian V., from Münster, was jailed for 14 years. The other three men were jailed for between 10 and 12 years.

The mother, Carina V., onion dark website was jailed for five years for aiding and abetting. 

Police are still screening evidence uncovered from the abuse in the shed and have used it to identify suspects across Germany and abroad. 

Five men have already been convicted and sentenced in connection with the case and investigators have identified 50 suspects, of whom around 30 are in custody.

The current trial began last November and the sentences were broadly in line with what prosecutors had demanded.

It is just one of a series of gruesome child abuse cases to rock the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia over the last year, prompting a tightening of legislation.

In June 2020, investigators said they were probing some 30,000 suspects as part of an investigation into a large online paedophile network linked to the city of Bergisch Gladbach.

In an earlier scandal in Luegde, 80 miles from Munster, several men abused children hundreds of times at a campsite over a number of years.

In response to the series of cases, the German parliament in March agreed tougher punishments for using and sharing child pornography.

The law also gives police and prosecutors broader powers to monitor online communication of suspects.

The post Four paedophiles jailed in Germany for raping boys in garden shed appeared first on The News Max.

The “BOYSTOWN” platform has existed since at least June 2019 and was only accessible via the so-called darknet market, the Frankfurt public prosecutor’s office and dark darknet market list the BKA Federal Police said in a statement.

The website has more than 400,000 users and was used for the worldwide exchange of child pornography.

It enabled members to retrieve child pornography content and exchange footage with each other in chat areas as well as via voice channels.

“Among the images and video recordings shared were also recordings of the most severe sexual abuse of young children,” prosecutors said.

Police arrested three main suspects, who are accused of operating and maintaining the platform, during raids on seven properties in mid-April.

The suspects are a 40-year-old man living in Paderborn in western Germany, a 49-year-old man from the Munich area and a 58-year-old man from northern Germany who has been living in South America for several years, police said.

A fourth man, a 64-year-old from Hamburg, has also been arrested on suspicion of having registered as a member of the platform in July 2019 and dark market list having posted over 3,500 contributions on the site, making him one of the most active users.

Following the raids, the BOYSTOWN platform has been taken down, police said.

(Reporting by Caroline Copley; Editing by Giles Elgood)

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A government shutdown of dark web marketplaces AlphaBay and Hansa has merchants and consumers looking for a new home.

Authorities , the largest online marketplace for illegal goods, on July 4, and took down Hansa, the third largest, on Thursday. The sites, where people could buy drugs, guns and child pornography, had flourished since 2014, darkmarket list when a predecessor, Silk Road, was shut down. 

Fueled by Tor browsers and cryptocurrencies that offer anonymity, AlphaBay, Hansa and other sites avoided much government detection, allowing  in the wake of Silk Road’s demise. AlphaBay replaced as the biggest, growing to be 10 times larger. 

When one dark market falls, buyers and sellers just move on to the next one.

The migration of buyers and sellers comes as authorities around the world crack down on digital marketplaces that cater to growing numbers of shadowy sales. at the time it was taken offline. By comparison, Silk Road had just 14,000 when the Federal Bureau of Investigation closed it four years ago.

Many of the sites . A recent study by the University of Manchester and think tank Rand Europe found 811 arms-related listings on . The researchers found nearly 60% of the weapons came from the US and most of the sales were headed to Europe. Worryingly, one gun bought on a cryptomarket was used in a .

FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe acknowledged shutting down such markets was like playing whack-a-mole. His agency would likely have to in the future, he said.

“Critics will say as we shutter one site, another will emerge,” McCabe said at a press conference. “But that is the nature of criminal work. It never goes away, you have to constantly keep at it, and you have to use every tool in your toolbox.”

One such tool: using a captured marketplace as a trap.

After the fall of AlphaBay, Dutch police said they saw traffic heading to Hansa spike eight-fold. That was something the cops were anticipating. 

Dutch police had full control of Hansa on June 20, but waited a month before shutting it down hoping to catch the new users in marketplace chaos.

“We could identify and disrupt the regular criminal activity that was happening on Hansa market but also sweep up all of those new users that were displaced from AlphaBay and looking for a new trading platform for their criminal activities,” Rob Wainwright, the Europol director, said at the press conference.

Dutch police now have the usernames, passwords and IP addresses of thousands of Hansa users, and dark market url are tracking them down.

An underground in flux

The ploy has dark web market users on edge. Many are concerned about whether the next available platform will be compromised as well. That has them questioning Dream darknet market, a marketplace that’s been in business since 2013 and benefitted from the shutdown of rivals. 

“After the closure of the AlphaBay darknet market, many vendors expressed that they were moving their operations to Hansa and Dream darknet market,” Liv Rowley, an analyst at Flashpoint, said. “The shuttering of Hansa now leaves Dream the only remaining major option.”

Rowley noticed chatter on forums and subreddits pointing to Dream Market as the next AlphaBay, but people are wary after the Dutch police ploy.

Reddit users on several  threads have expressed concerns the website has been compromised in a similar fashion. A user who speculated Hansa had been compromised in a thread posted  returned on Thursday to warn that .

“This is a warning you will want to heed,” the user, who goes by , posted. “They are waiting to gather as many refugees from AB & Hansa as they can and then drop the hammer.”

Other marketplaces, like Tochka and Valhalla, could also rise in the vacuum AlphaBay and Hansa have left. Some smaller dark web markets are even appealing to those lost in AlphaBay’s shake-up. 

Security company was offering vendors from AlphaBay a discount if they moved to their platform.

“The entire illegal underground is in flux right now,” Flashpoint’s Rowley said.

It’ll be quiet on the dark web until people can find a reliable marketplace again, but eventually they will, said Emily Wilson, the director of analysis at Terbium Labs.

She called the busts a “sizable hiccup” but not “an irreversible blow.” 

It’s unclear who’ll emerge from the fallout. But the FBI estimates that more than 40,000 merchants are looking for a place to sell. And there are more than 200,000 customers looking for places to buy stuff they can’t get on Amazon. 

With AlphaBay, the Amazon of illegal goods, now shut down, the market is fragmenting. If you want malware, there’s a darknet market for that on the dark web. The same for guns and for drugs. So business will go on, albeit less conveniently.

“For now, there are plenty of smaller and more specialized markets for vendors and buyers to continue trading,” Wilson said. 

First published July 21, 8 a.m. ET

Update, 5:04 p.m.: Adds background on scope of the markets, weapons sales. 

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