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Man charged for allegedly selling insider trading tips on the dark web
Apostolos Trovias faces up to 45 years in prison if convicted of money laundering and securities fraud.
AlphaBay dark web moderator sentenced to 11 years in prison
Bryan Connor Herrell, a 26-year-old man from Colorado who served as a moderator for AlphaBay, has been sentenced to 11 years in prison. The DOJ says Herrell was paid in Bitcoin for his services and operated under the pseudonyms “Penissmith” and “Botah,” but the steps he took to preserve his anonymity weren’t enough to protect him.
Ohio man charged for laundering $300 million through Bitcoin 'mixer'
American law enforcement just illustrated how important cryptocurrency has become in the criminal world. Federal agents have charged Ohio resident Larry Harmon for allegedly running a darknet-based Bitcoin "mixer" that laundered the equivalent of roughly $300 million for drug dealers and other crooks. Helix, as it was called while it ran between 2014 and 2017, reportedly let customers pay to send Bitcoin in a way that hid the true source. It operated with "brazenness," the IRS' Don Fort said. Helix supposedly partnered with AlphaBay to serve the darknet black market's customers, and advertised Helix on the Grams search engine (which Harmon apparently ran) as a way to hide deals from police.
US authorities have seized the dark web marketplace AlphaBay
Last week, we reported that an international law enforcement operation had shut down AlphaBay, the dark web's go-to marketplace after the fall of Silk Road. Today, the U.S. Justice Department announced that it has seized AlphaBay and has brought civil charges against operator Alexandre Cazes (who is now deceased) and his wife, with the intention of taking their assets as well.
Authorities bust AlphaBay, the dark web's biggest marketplace
After the demise of Silk Road, the role of the dark web's most notorious black marketplace was assumed by AlphaBay. But The Wall Street Journal reports that the site has now been shuttered, thanks to a joint law enforcement operation between the US, Canada and Thailand. One of its operators, Canadian Alexandre Cazes, was arrested in Thailand, but was found dead in his prison cell earlier this week.
