Given that the bridge is now coated with advanced paints that last for decades, can law enforcement look forward to a similar long term solution to the underground trade in drugs, weapons and data? This not only would have given law enforcement investigators access to WSM at the highest level, but also enabled them to gather information on the trading history of everyone who had used the service.Įuropol's executive director, Catherine De Bolle, said that the investigation illustrated "the importance of law enforcement cooperation at an international level and demonstrate that illegal activity on the dark web is not as anonymous as criminals may think." The Wall Street Market takedown is undoubtedly a positive move by law enforcement in the fight against cybercrime, but could it also be a futile one? There is some concern that closing down these marketplaces is akin to the old painting the Forth Bridge scenario as you finish so you have to start again. The irony being that the same moderator recently posted his own login credentials online as well as revealing the IP address of the WSM server. The potential exit scam could have been the reason that one of the WSM moderators had attempted to extort Bitcoin from traders with the threat of doxing them to make their real identities public. After all, these are criminals we are talking about and if they sense that law enforcement are closing in they look to ways to take as much money as possible and run. Such exit scams are not uncommon on the dark web. The total was thought to be in the region of $30 million and rumors of a Bitcoin exit scam soon surfaced. by the Los Angeles Attorney General culminated in the arrest two of the most prolific drug dealers on the site.Īll of which follows a few weeks of turmoil and fury among dark web traders as their Bitcoin funds, along with those of their customers, was locked down. Meanwhile, a simultaneous investigation in the U.S. With the operators of the marketplace receiving commission on sales of up to 6%, it's hardly surprising that in excess of $600,000 in cash and "six digit" worth of Bitcoin and Monero was seized at the time of the arrests in Germany. They were responsible for some 63,000 sales postings to attract the attention of the more than 1 million registered customer accounts. Accessible via the Tor network, WSM had in excess of 5,000 sellers registered at the time of the takedown according to the Europol report.
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