However, authorities now confirm that they successfully tracked these funds, leading to the identification and arrest of the administrators. The Bohemia marketplace ceased operations in late 2023 due to service disruptions, while its members suspected an exit scams of a rogue developer. At the time of its shut down, Bohemia hosted 82,000 daily ads and handled around 67,000 transactions monthly, with a turnover of €12 million in September 2023 alone.
Darknet Market Arrests
The Politie, the Dutch police force, has stated that they were able to identify several administrators and sellers who had falsely believed they were elusive to the police. “Due to international cooperation, the credibility and reliability of these markets have once again been severely damaged,” said Duijf. Bohemia Market is not just a place where you can buy or sell consignments; It is a robust ecosystem that provides users with a secure environment for anonymous services. Since its inception, the market has attracted attention due to its reliability and wide range of products and services, as well as its high level of security and anonymity. This successful operation serves as a warning to other dark web marketplaces and highlights the ongoing efforts to combat cybercrime worldwide.
Dutch Police Take Down Bohemia/Cannabia Dark Market Place Admins
- For sellers in the Netherlands, the police’s analysis shows that those performed at least 14,000 transactions totaling 1.7 million Euros in value ($1.86M).
- For example, in November 2023, while operating in an undercover capacity on Incognito Market, a law enforcement agent purchased and received several tablets purported to be oxycodone.
- After two months of tracking by “ODN”, there are indications that Bohemia Market might be opting for an “exit scam”.
- “Administrators, sellers and buyers of and on illegal marketplaces often believe themselves to be elusive to the police and the judiciary,” said Stan Duijf, head of the operations unit of the National Investigation and Interventions.
These features include mass messaging, which enables vendors to easily reach out to their previous customers, direct listing promotions, and other valuable tools. If an order does not meet the customer’s expectations or is not delivered on time, it can be challenged. Using a provider with extensive experience is the best approach to avoid this type of issue. The most popular product categories on the site are cannabis and hashish, which are sold by merchants from all over the world. All other categories have fewer listings, including psychedelics, ecstasy and stimulants.
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Despite its smaller size, Bohemia boasts a decent product selection from vendors servicing regions like the EU, UK, US, and Canada. The market focuses primarily on drug listings but also offers a substantial selection of digital items. Although the lack of sophisticated payment options is a drawback, Bohemia’s commitment to user engagement and a simplified darknet market experience positions it as a promising contender in this space.
The Dutch police, who had been monitoring Bohemia and Cannabia for several months, capitalized on the growing chaos to launch a coordinated takedown. The investigation revealed that many sellers on Bohemia were based in the Netherlands, and it was discovered that at least 14,000 transactions had been processed from the country, amounting to over €1.7 million in value. Bohemia, in particular, attracted significant attention from law enforcement due to its vast scale.
Ghost-Tapping And The Chinese Cybercriminal Retail Fraud Ecosystem
The Dutch Police, through the voice of Stan Duijf, Head of Operations Unit National Investigation and Interventions, wanted to underline that, even if criminals think of themselves as elusive, the dark web is not at all as anonymous as users may think. The Dutch police revealed that some sellers on the platform were shipping goods from the Netherlands, and an initial investigation indicated that at least 14,000 transactions originated from the country, amounting to a value of €1.7 million (around ₹14.1 crore). Someone claiming to be a vendor on Bohemia vows to cut their losses and leave the marketplace after not receiving the funds promised by the administrators or a response from “support”.
Darknet Market Forum
The investigation of DarkMarket was spurred by another, much larger German police investigation into an organization called CyberBunker, which I wrote about in the magazine last year. In 2013, a polyglot group of programmers and hackers, under the leadership of an eccentric fifty-three-year-old Dutchman named Xennt, moved into a Cold War-era bunker near the picturesque town of Traben-Trarbach, in the Mosel Valley. The bunker had previously belonged to the German military, and it was designed to withstand a nuclear attack.
The marketplace reportedly added 82,000 advertisements daily and facilitated 67,000 transactions every month. On October 31, Dark Web Informer (@DarkWebInformer) tweeted a warning, stating that Bohemia Market is currently experiencing withdrawal and login issues, with no response from the market staff. As early as October 13, dark.fail (@DarkDotFail) tweeted that discussions about Bohemia Market’s exit scam have been circulating, but their staff continues to respond to posts on the Dread forum. Thus, it appears more like a case of suffering a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, and @DarkDotFail mentioned they are attempting to verify this. Manual monitoring of the dark web is inefficient and risky due to the sheer volume of data involved. This platform has rapidly become a key player in the fraud market, trading in PII and SSH credentials while making use of both the clear and dark web.
Top 5 International Dark Web Marketplaces Still Online In June 2022
As these platforms fall, new marketplaces inevitably emerge to fill the void, but the increasing frequency of police operations has severely damaged the credibility of the dark web ecosystem. Bohemia and Cannabia had long been recognized as leading platforms for illegal transactions on the dark web. With the recent closure of major marketplaces including AlphaBay, ASAP, and Tor2Door, Bohemia took pole position as the one of the most popular dark web markets and attracted an influx of new users. However, very quickly cracks began to show, with notable disruption taking place on the site from early October 2023. Shortly after Xennt arrived in the Mosel Valley, his activities attracted the interest of a prosecutor named Jörg Angerer, who worked in the nearby city of Koblenz.
The Dutch Police’s Investigation
Parsarad was also indicted by a federal grand jury in the Northern District of Ohio on drug trafficking charges related to the illegal business he ran on the dark web. Bohemia’s closure is particularly significant given the market’s size and reputation. Initially launched in 2021, Bohemia quickly became one of the most popular dark web platforms, particularly for cannabis products.
Xennt, who had a lifelong fascination with underground fortresses, lived in the bunker. Inside the bunker, Xennt’s team installed servers that hosted dark-Web sites trading illicit products and images, including terrorist material and images of child abuse. This is a well-kept secret, as it is with the majority of dark web marketplaces.
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Despite numerous closures over the years, such as WT1SHOP and Piilopuoti, many of these markets still operate. Bohemia and Cannabia is one of the more famous ones, even though it was closed down since the end of 2023. The takedown resulted in the arrest of two individuals, one in the Netherlands and the other in Ireland.
However, very quickly cracks began to show, with notable disruption taking place on the site from early October. At one point the market was inaccessible and its users and vendors started to complain that they could not access their funds and were receiving patchy communication from the site’s administrators. The shutdown of Bohemia and Cannabia comes amid a broader wave of law enforcement action targeting dark web markets. Over the past few years, several major platforms, including AlphaBay, Tor2Door, and ASAP, have been taken down.
