It has now been confirmed that the administrator of the 2nd largest darknet drug marketplace, BlankBank, has stolen all user funds, believed to be somewhere between 600-1200 bitcoins or around $150k-300k (at time of writing).
Back in May, BlackBank, went down to maintenance to supposedly to install a “Bitcoin tumbler” or money laundering software. Darknet markets rely on anonymity, and tumblers are an important feature to users who want to stay anonymous. Today, it’s been confirmed that instead of maintenance, the admin, MDparity, had instead taken everyone’s bitcoins and transferred them to himself.
Exit scams are an increasingly common way for deep web drug markets to close. An exit scam is when the owners of a darknet drug market decide to quit, often they declare there’s maintenance that needs to be done, so they begin the process of seizing all the bitcoins on the site, and transferring them to their own private accounts in such a way to hide their identity.
Not 2 months ago in March, the administrators of Evolution Marketplace, the previous 2nd largest drug market, exit scammed, and stole around 40,000 bitcoin, or around $10 million (at time of writing). With Silk Road’s admin looking at life without parole, and dozens of other markets seized or hacked or scammed, it’s a bad time for anyone looking to buy sketchy stuff on the darknet.
If you want to lose your bitcoin in a drug market scam, you can download the Tor Browser Bundle to try your luck, and there are a few search engines for the deep web.
(Photo: Zach Copley)
