Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Deep Web Bitcoin Site Accused of Stealing $12 Millions



Rob Price at Business Insider reports:
The value of Bitcoin is plummeting after Evolution, a huge Deep Web marketplace for drugs and other illicit goods, vanished overnight.
Former staff members accuse the site's administrator's of stealing an estimated $12 million in Bitcoin.

Andy Greenberg at Wired reports:
Over the past weekend, the massive anonymous market known as Evolution halted withdrawals of bitcoin from its website, telling users that it was dealing with technical difficulties. Then on Tuesday evening, both its market and user forum went offline, with no opportunity for drug buyers and sellers to pull out the funds they had stored in their Evolution accounts. The result has been a wave of panic that’s shaken the online black market economy as much as any of the law enforcement drug busts of the last two years.
Late Tuesday, a Reddit user named NSWGreat who had earlier self-described as an Evolution drug dealer and “public relations” staffer —he or she had even hosted an “ask me anything” session about the job days earlier—wrote a post to Reddit’s darknet markets forum that claimed to confirm Evolution’s administrators had in fact shut down the site’s back end too, and escaped with users’ money; NSWGreat described confronting Evolution’s two pseudonymous owners, Verto and Kimble, who he or she says then admitted they were closing the market and stealing its funds. “I am so sorry, but Verto and Kimble have f–ked us all. I have over $20,000 in escrow myself from sales,” NSWGreat wrote. “I’m sorry for everyone’s loses, I’m gutted and speechless. I feel so betrayed.”
 -RW

2 comments:

  1. I't's going to be interesting to watch this play out. A little experiment in anarchy. Of course so many are brainwashed into such a degree of comfort living inside the warm blanky of government and regulation. But there's certainly private security looking for these guys as we speak.

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    1. Not an experiment in anarchy, but a object lesson on how difficult it is to transact in sectors where the gvt doesn't want you to operate.

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