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Utopia, Silk Road's Latest Replacement, Only Lasted Nine Days
Daniel_Stuckey points us to this story by Max Cherney: "This morning, anyone hoping to browse Utopia, the up-and-coming (but now defunct) competitor to Silk Road 2.0, was greeted with an unwelcome but at this point familiar message: 'This hidden service has been seized by the Dutch National Police.' The online black market was shut down a mere nine days after its much-anticipated launch. Despite rumors of a hack, Dutch cops have issued a statement saying they arrested five men in connection with running Utopia and seized computers, hard drives, USB sticks, and 'about 900 Bitcoins' — roughly $600,000. Utopia's servers were apparently housed in Germany, where another man was arrested on suspicion of weapons and drug trafficking. The Dutch launched operation CONDOR in early 2013 to uncover illegal marketplaces on the Tor network, of the likes of Silk Road 2.0 and Utopia. The investigation into Utopia pulled out all the stops: undercover agents and 'buy-busts,' not just of drugs, but also a contract assassination — much to the surprise of the Dutch public prosecutor."
The surprised Dutch prosecutor looks hot.
Note to self, don't set up tor based drug and arms trading site if you're already a drug or arms trader. They know who you are.
Why would they keep it in a private residence? Especially in a place with someone that is bound to attract attention. If I were to be running something like this, I would try to make sure it is at least 500 miles (804 Kilometers) away from anyone that I know. >.>
Restore the madness of youth's lechery
I can already hear the chittering of paranoiac libertarians' keyboards as they froth over how this was 'obviously' a set-up.
No, criminals are just that fucking stupid, and you don't need to be that smart to set up a glorified webforum.
So wait TOR isn't magical unbreakable software that makes you immune to laws and invisible to enforcement? Who knew? At this point if they want you they are going to get you. Use proxies if you want, use VPNs if you want, try TOR or I2P or Freenet or freaking pixies with smoke signals but cracking is easier than securing so just as soon as you make it worthwhile to get you they are going to come. In ten years or so there will be a horde of people crying out over some future data leak that shows backdoors and government zero days in what is considered 'secure' software and saying "Gee, everyone knew this was all compromised back in 2014. This isn't news." /rant
I hope Jackie Chan was involved.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
So wait TOR isn't magical unbreakable software that makes you immune to laws and invisible to enforcement?
If everyone doesn't think every intelligence agency on earth does not treat as "top priority" ALL communication coming from someone who uses TOR, you are nuts.
If everyone were using TOR it might be a different matter, but we all know that most people using TOR are hiding something, and the intelligence agencies do not like things hidden except what they want to hide...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That's operation "commodore", not "condor".
He was already under suspicion for illegal passports coming in from Canada, but he logged into his Gmail account through his VPN..that was the nail in the coffin
For those not able to understand Dutch, I'll translate the message by the public prosecution.
"In an investigation to criminal market places on the internet, the police arrest 5 men - among which a convicted criminal - on Tuesday. On anonymous, deeply hidden websites drugs and weapons were offered. With permission of the public prosecution undercover agents bought drugs and fire arms on multiple occasions during the past few months. They also received an advance payment for a contract murder.
The police arrested two men aged 30 and 31 in Enschede [city near the German border], who are suspect of drug and weapon trade on illegal online market places. It concerns Black Market Reloaded and Utopia, Tor websites which were most likely involved in the illicit market places.
Black Market Reloaded went offline at the end of last year, after a surge of visitors. This sudden surge arose when the FBI took down Silk Road - one of Black Market Reloaded's largest competitors - and arrested its owner in October.
The Dutch suspects maintained an own illicit market place under the name Utopia. The servers on which this website ran have been found in the German cities of Bochum and Düsseldorf, and were seized yesterday. After taking down the website, the police left a note that the hidden service had been seized by police.
Upon request of the Public Prosecution [NL], the Bundeskriminalamt [German] arrested a 21 year old man on Tuesday who is suspected of trade in drugs and weaponry. The man presumably offered not only hard drugs [Dutch law makes a distinction between semi-legal 'soft' drugs (marijuana and mushrooms) and entirely illegal 'hard' drugs], but also offered munition and stolen credit cards for sale.
A 46-year old fellow suspect was already arrested in October 2013 when he was en route to Germany with 1.5 kilograms of marijuana, over 40 grams of cocaine, three kilograms of amphetamine and 1.5 kilograms of XTC pills. The man has been arrested again in his cell today, now for involvement in the illicit online trade and evoking murder.
The police investigation under codename Commodore was started in early 2013 on account of signals about drug trade on internet via anonymous, deeply hidden websites. There would be large scale trade in drugs and other illegal goods and services. Drugs could be ordered through these websites, and were subsequently send and delivered world-wide by post.
The Tor network allows one to surf anonymously on the internet without leaving a trail. Illegal market places within the Tor environment make it possible to acquire illegal goods, services and information. Through the use of Tor it is furthermore difficult to determine the physical location of the web servers.
The illegal and accessible character of these websites with digital payments in bitcoin makes them societally unwanted and a severe disruption of the rule of law. The Commodore investigation gives a clear signal to those who wish to conduct crimes within digital anonymity. The investigation and prosecution of these crimes have high priority for the police and Public Prosection.
The police made contact with the suspects through undercover agents. The agents bought drugs and fire arms with ease. It concerns several thousands of XTC pills, raw blocks of MDMA and tens of grams of cocaine. The undercover agents were offered to buy several kilograms of cocaine.
To the dismay of the police and Public Prosecution, the undercover agents were also requested to "bring someone to the other world". The target would be extorted and subsequently killed. The contact led to a physical meeting, where an advance payment was made.
During the search of the residences of the suspects, computers, storage devices such as hard disks and usb drives, and 900 bitcoin worth approximately 400,000 to 600,000 euros, have been seized. The in the Netherlands arrested suspects are being brought to court on Friday. The Public Prosecution has requested the extradition of the German suspect."
I don't understand why the big cartels aren't in on this. Direct sales via post would solve a lot of their problems...seizures probably wouldn't be more than they have now (with mules smuggling condoms of drugs in their guts and such), some middle men would be eliminated (increasing their share of the street value), and they could make an App Store-style cut off of the sales they aren't doing directly. They could even host it in some country they have control of, like Colombia or Mexico, reducing the chance of it all being interrupted or seized. They should be all over this.
Stasis is death. Embrace change.
Aren't there better countries for hosting black market silk road style servers? Like Russia, or Chechnya? Liberia?
Usually the ones that get caught are the ones the cartels and smugglers tip off the authorities about. They get caught and half a dozen others walk through while customs are patting themselves on the back.
If you don't know the smugglers and you are offered cash to smuggle drugs then you are the decoy and can usually expect to get caught.
This just goes to show, anyone stupid enough to sell drugs doesn't know a damn thing about privacy, security, or protection online.