Ostensible Alphabay Admin ‘Desnake’ Claims the Darknet Market Has

In mid-July 2017, the largest darknet marketplace (DNM) Alphabay went dark and patrons didn’t know if the administrators were busted by law enforcement or if it was an exit scam. Not too long after the site went dark, law enforcement disclosed that an organized police task force, from various jurisdictions, infiltrated Alphabay alongside the DNM Hansa. Thailand police also arrested Alexandre Cazes, the alleged administrator for the Alphabay marketplace. Now over four years later, Alphabay (AB) has allegedly returned as the original AB admin “Desnake” has ostensibly ‘proven control’ over the AB administrators’ PGP key.

The So-Called Return of the Alphabay, New Platform Unstable, Veracity of Desnake’s PGP Key Questionable

During the last few weeks, darknet marketplace (DNM) users, researchers, and observers have been discussing the so-called return of the Alphabay (AB) marketplace. The DNM was the largest darknet market in 2017, and before the publication Deepdotweb was seized, it had shown that AB had a 96% approval rating. When the site went dark that summer four years ago, thousands of AB users flocked to both Hansa and Dream DNMs. Little did Hansa users know the market had been seized by international law enforcement.

Netherlands Police and the Public Prosecutor’s Office dismantled Hansa in early June and basically operated the DNM, while users flocked to Hansa after AB went down. While operating Hansa, law enforcement collected lots of information on vendors and frequent patrons who leveraged the DNM and seized thousands of bitcoins. Then there was the so-called AB Kingpin Alexandre Cazes who was arrested by Thailand police. It was assumed, that Cazes was or played the role of the AB administrator dubbed “Desnake.” However, Cazes was found dead in his cell after his arrest in Thailand.

Fast forward to today, Hansa is gone and the DNM Dream’s administrators decided to close down the shop. In August 2021, visitors who utilize the Dread forum noted the appearance of “Desnake” resurfacing. Desnake also ostensibly proved its identity by leveraging the account’s historical PGP key. Reportedly, a former AB moderator called “disc0” vouched for Desnake as well. The researchers at darkowl.com published an in-depth report of findings tied to the alleged Desnake’s return and how the user promoted the newly launched Alphabay DNM “with services hosted on both Tor and I2P.”

Darkowl notes that the new AB has been “unstable” since it returned, and users experience “frequent 503 errors, user registration issues, and login timeouts.” I2P services tethered to the new AB rarely loads and Darkowl claims the AB user base is much smaller than what Desnake has been boasting.

“Desnake claims there have been 15,000 user accounts created,…