On the morning of July 5th, 2017, a man sits in front of his laptop in his villa in Bangkok. Simultaneously, online, he is only known under a pseudonym: Alpha02. He is a multi-millionaire, lives a luxurious life and drives expensive cars. He feels safe in Thailand. However, suddenly, he hears a loud bang in front of his house. A woman crashed her Toyota Camry into his front gate. He leaves everything behind and runs out of his house to the scene of the accident. Consequently, this turns out to be a mistake with serious consequences. The driver is an agent of the Royal Thai Police force. Moreover, FBI and DEA investigators have been waiting for this moment for months. Additionally, authorities from seven countries have worked relentlessly towards this day. So, will the hunt for the king of the dark web finally come to an end?
The Dark Web
In the early 2010s, the dark web began to pick up speed. Simultaneously, the promises of anonymity and privacy were attracting more and more people. Moreover, thanks to Bitcoin, a new form of payment emerged that wasn’t controlled by authorities. As a result, it became easier than ever for criminals to sell their products online at a massive scale. Consequently, with the advent of the dark web, the gigantic global game of cat and mouse began and continues to this day.
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The Silk Road
The Silk Road is perhaps the most legendary dark web marketplace to date. Firstly, the platform went live in February 2011 and became incredibly popular. However, more than 100,000 customers bought drugs there. Nevertheless, only 2.5 years later, the operator of the site was caught, and the Silk Road went offline. Consequently, the authorities wanted to set an example in the fight against drugs. As a result, the Silk Road founder received a life sentence. Nevertheless, the business was too lucrative to drive away other operators. Consequently, after the closure of the Silk Road, the number of darknet markets exploded. In the meantime, they all fought for the top spot.
AlphaBay
AlphaBay was introduced in July 2014 by a man who calls himself “Alpha02.” Initially, only stolen credit card data is offered and sold, but AlphaBay quickly begins to offer more lucrative products. In addition to data and logins, there are now drugs, weapons, and malware. Services such as money laundering are also offered. Few things are forbidden. But items or data related to child abuse, hit-and-runs, and stolen bank account information from Russia are strictly prohibited. Alpha02 probably doesn’t want to mess with Russian law enforcement agencies. Maybe he also wants to pretend to be Russian in order to mislead investigators.
The website itself works similarly to Amazon. It is user-friendly, there are search functions, filters, and categories. You are able to pay with Bitcoin, Monero, or Ethereum. This is supposed to provide anonymity. AlphaBay even offers a so-called tumbler, purchases are blurred by bundling multiple transactions from different people. The platform works well and dominates the dark web. While other marketplaces popped up and disappeared, AlphaBay remains strong. The number of users is growing rapidly. Barely a year after it was founded, the site has more than 200,000 registered users and 40,000 sellers. In 2017, AlphaBay has over 300,000 items on their website and over half a million dollars in sales every day. Alpha02 is making money with every single transaction, receiving a share between 2 to 4%. He becomes a multimillionaire.
AlphaBay and DeSnake
Right now, an entire team is working on AlphaBay. Alpha02 has a representative named “DeSnake,” several moderators who handle disputes between buyers and sellers, and a PR manager. With the site’s explosive success, the founder decides to retire from day-to-day operations. He renames himself. “Alpha02” simply becomes “Admin.” From now on, communication only runs through “DeSnake.” As Alpha02 retreats, American investigators are paying more and more attention to his true identity. Who is the powerful mastermind behind the platform ruling the dark side of the Internet? A hunt that stretches across the globe and will last for more than several years begins.
The Hunt
The American investigators want to find out where AlphaBay servers are located. Subsequently, with access to the servers, they can close the platform or secretly infiltrate it and perhaps locate the operators.
IP addresses provide information about the locations of users and servers. Conversely, in closed networks like TOR, website requests are routed through a number of random servers around the world. Consequently, routing through many servers cannot be traced back. It is purposely made difficult to find out where servers, operators, and sellers are located.
Despite this, the American investigators had to try a different way. They start browsing the platform and buy drugs anonymously, hoping for any mistakes by the sellers. Alternatively, perhaps the product’s packaging or postage stamps can provide clues to the identity of the respective drug dealer. Then they could arrest him. Nevertheless, these are just the small fish. Dealers come and go. Investigators want Alpha02. But the mastermind behind AlphaBay seems to take every precaution.
California Story So Far
At this point in time, the investigators become desperate until December 2016. Robert Miller sits behind his desk in Fresno, California. He works for the DEA, the American Drug Law Enforcement Agency. At this moment, and until this day, it was a pretty thankless job. But suddenly, an email appears in his inbox. The sender is anonymous.
By the same token, it seems like Alpha02 made a fatal mistake in the early days of AlphaBay. Every user who registered on the website at the time received a welcome email. Notably, the email address of the true sender was visible in the metadata of this email. Although the error was immediately corrected, the anonymous tipster saved one of those first welcome emails.
Meanwhile, maybe the tipster was one of Alpha02’s first customers, maybe an operator of a competing site that got a hold of the mail somehow. Who knows? In any case, he silently watched AlphaBay growing on the dark web, only to then hand the email address over to the DEA. The email address is “pimp_alex_91@hotmail.com.”
The Dating Site Saga
In a similar vein, this email was the breakthrough for Miller and his colleagues. Via the email address, the investigators find photos from 2008 and 2009 of an “Alex” on Skyrock.com. In the same fashion, that’s a French-language social media platform. He also linked an old dating profile. The profile lists Trois-Rivières as his hometown. It is located in southern Quebec, Canada.
On the contrary, according to the profile, he was 17 years old at the time. So the 91 in his email address could be the year he was born. He would have been 23 years old when AlphaBay was founded. Likewise, the username “Alpha02” also appears on a French-language technology forum. In 2008, he explained how to remove a virus from an image.
Additionally, his email address is at the bottom of the post and also his full name: Alexandre Cazes. The investigators have his name, but where is he? At the same time, they find Caze’s PayPal account. He provided his private email address there as well. Through his LinkedIn profile, they also find out that he works as a freelance software designer. He also seems to run his own tech company called EBX Technologies.
In the same breath, on Facebook, the investigators find the profile of his fiancée, a Thai woman. Apparently, the Canadian lives in Thailand. The clues to Alpha02 are slowly but surely falling into place.
The Sting
Investigators send an urgent request to the Royal Thai Police. Consequently, they explain that they are after a Canadian who is living in Thailand. He is suspected of serious crimes. The Thais are able to provide the DEA with an address, the name of Cazes’s fiancée, and a picture of him. Subsequently, the agents check the address, they stake out the house for several days, but Cazes does not appear. Then suddenly, on July 5th, 2017, he is spotted in front of his villa. That’s when the Thai police arrests Cazes. He goes quietly, but one more time, it seems like he made a mistake that would cost him his life. Evidently, the DEA had requested the arrest of Cazes for a long time. So the Americans want Cazes to be sent to the US, but that doesn’t usually happen with Canadians.
AlphaBay DEA Intervention
The process for that takes weeks or even months. At the same time, the DEA doesn’t have. At the moment of his arrest, AlphaBay was online and Cazes had control over the servers. Consequently, the DEA’s agents went into the villa, into his house, and confronted him about AlphaBay. The platform was taken offline, and the authorities revealed that they had Alpha02 in their custody. Suddenly, Cazes refuses to cooperate. He was in a room with a window that led to another room. He locks himself into the inner room and kills oneself. With a cord that was hanging from the window, Cazes hangs himself. The man who knew the dark web probably better than anyone else is dead. There will be no further details, and investigators can’t find his suicide note. Nonetheless, the American prosecutors withdraw the indictment. They can’t prosecute a dead person.
Consequently, AlphaBay was offline, but the hunt for criminals on the dark web continues.
