AlphaBay taken down by law enforcement across 3 countries, WSJ says

Enlarge / A bitcoin token stands in this arranged photograph in London, U.K., on Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2017. (credit: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

AlphaBay, one of the largest Tor-hidden drug websites that sprang up in the wake of Silk Road, has been shuttered for good after a series of law enforcement raids and arrests.

The site mysteriously went dark earlier this month. Some users on Reddit suspected an "exit scam," in which AlphaBay's founders had shuttered the site and absconded with piles of bitcoins.

According to The Wall Street Journal, which reported the news on Thursday, police in the United States, Canada, and Thailand collaborated to arrest Alexandre Cazes, who allegedly was the head of the online operation. The Canadian citizen was arrested on July 5 in Thailand, the same day that two raids on residences in Quebec, Canada, were executed. On Wednesday, Cazes was found dead, hanged in his Thai jail cell.

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