AlphaBay sold drugs, guns and hacking tools online — until a sting operation shut it down
Two so-called “dark Web” sites dedicated to illegal drug and arms sales have been seized in an audacious sting operation, and the suspected ringleader has committed suicide, U.S. Justice Department officials said Thursday. Cazes had been charged in connection with running the black market site that Horwood called “much bigger” than Silk Road, a notorious dark Web marketplace seized by law enforcement in 2013. “It was always the highest rated market, and it had a lot of volume.” Cazes’ attorney, Roger Bonakdar of Fresno, said he had spoken to the young French Canadian by phone only a few hours before he was found hanged. Gen. Jeff Sessions calling the bust “likely one of the most important criminal investigations of the year” and stating, “The dark net is not a place to hide.” But Bonakdar, Cazes’ attorney, said that while AlphaBay was clearly a conduit for contraband, prosecutors had overstated the volume of business on the site in an effort to build their case against Cazes.
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