AlphaBay: How seven countries worked together to take down the biggest online black market for drugs

Have you ever heard about the “dark web”? What about AlphaBay? AlphaBay was launched by a Canadian citizen, Alexander Cazes, in December 2014, and became one of the largest “dark web” marketplaces designed to enable users to buy and sell illegal goods, including controlled substances, stolen and fraudulent identification documents and access devices, counterfeit goods, malware and other computer hacking tools, firearms, and toxic chemicals.

At its peak, AlphaBay was used by thousands of vendors to distribute controlled substances and other illegal goods and services to more 200,000 buyers throughout the world and to launder hundreds of millions of dollars deriving from these illegal transactions. It was considered the biggest online black market for drugs, being between five and ten times the size of the Silk Road dark web marketplace at its peak.