Thread by @EileenOrmsby

We are closing in on the one year anniversary since the dark web's Whitehouse Market shut down. I thought I'd take the opportunity to list out a few of the notable #darkweb "ones that got away"
A #thread 🧵 with pics and links

Backopy - owner of Black Market Reloaded. After Silk Road fell, Backopy worried the tsunami of incoming traffic would make his site a magnet for law enforcement and chose to shut it down after letting users withdraw any crypto they had on the market

Vlad and Leora - owners of Atlantis. Rose as competition to Silk Road, took Litecoin as its preferred currency eileenormsby.com/2013/04/26/int…

Atlantis' shutdown was suspected of being an exit scam, but maybe spooked. It was later revealed during Ross Ulbricht’s trial that the owners wrote to DPR around the time they closed their doors to warn him of an impending FBI investigation
eileenormsby.com/2013/09/26/the…

They swore they were going to let users withdraw, so it's possible its owners went on to do greater things with its leftover funds, or maybe they kept them, who knows. Atlantis was most famous for putting out a couple of Youtube ads for its services

Tony76 pulled off the great 420 heist from Silk Road, something that would have reverberations for many years as Ulbricht's "Kingpin" charge hinged on him apparently ordering a hit on Tony
eileenormsby.com/2012/05/30/the…

The granddaddy of Exit Scams - Verto & Kimble from Evolution. They were the most brazen about it, stating it had always been their plan. It created the most marvelous #reddit drama, sadly mostly deleted
web.archive.org/web/2015052410…

Evolution had such a stellar reputation for security, ease of use, professionalism, and uptime, that many users swore all would be forgiven if they just came back. They got away with an estimated $12mil
eileenormsby.com/2015/03/18/is-…

AlphaBay was shut down by LE and its owner, Alex Cazes arrested, followed by a suspicious suicide-by-towel in his Bangkok prison cell. His 2IC, DeSnake, however, apparently got away. Last year he returned to reopen AlphaBay, one of the current top DNMs
wired.com/story/alphabay…

AlPacino/albertpacino/notwonderful, one of Dread Pirate Roberts' informants and suspected government agent managed to delete nearly all his presence from Silk Road files
vice.com/en/article/53d…

Which brings us to Whitehouse Market. On the 8th anniversary of the shutdown of Silk Road, the largest and most reliable darknet market, Whitehouse, announced it was closing

There are many more - Agora, Nucleus, Pandora and countless vendors. Let me know of any notable #darkweb ones who got away I might have missed