Ever since the downfall of underground drug marketplace Silk Road, many new entrants had tried to replace its criminalized glory. One among such newbies were Evolution Marketplace that was launched only a few months back, and soon gained fame for its notorious product range. However in the last few days, the drug bazaar is said to have been taken down by, as many believe, its own administrators.
According to a complaint submitted on Reddit by one of the Evolution staff member, the owners of the drug marketplace — Verto and Kimble — were running a scam in the name of an online bazaar. He reported himself as one of the victims of their fraud as he too lost a whopping sum in the process (around $20,000 worth of Bitcoin).
“I have admin access to see parts of the back end, the admins are preparing to exit scam with all the funds,” the Evolution PR member wrote. “Not a single withdrawal has gone through in almost a week. Automatic withdrawals has been disabled which is only doing on rare occasions.”
He later made an EDIT to his post and wrote:
“Servers have gone down, including back up server for staff. I’m sorry for everyone’s loses, I’m gutted and speechless. I feel so betrayed.”
Bitcoin Losses Could be in Millions
According to a report published by Digital Citizens Alliance (DCA) back in December 2014, the authority predicted Evolution to be even bigger than the original Silk Road. In the report, DCA clearly mentioned that Evolution were in favor of selling even those products that were meant to be nefarious than just drugs. They included everything from weapons to child pornography.
Just by looking at these reports, one could figure out how much money Evolution owners might have stacked before disappearing into the dark. When a smaller and limited drug operation like Silk Road was seized by the Feds, it yet managed to slip a whopping $3.6 million worth of Bitcoin. Apply a little mathematics, and Evolution could have made at least 50 times more Bitcoin than Silk Road.
The worst thing to happen however is that that every penny stolen from the scene is unaccounted and therefore a theft cannot be reported to any official law enforcement body, until the owners are ready for some good-cop-bad-cap sessions.
“Criminals in this town used to believe in things. Honor. Respect.” Not anymore.