In the dark parts of the web, some of its notorious drug marketplaces have gone offline, all without any prior notification or clarification from their administrators.
The dark web is a section of the internet where people can contact each other anonymously without the fear of being monitored. This part of the web is usually used by criminals to sell drugs, weapons, child abuse images and even assassination services.
The list of websites that were down include The Trade Route, Tochka, Wall Street Market and also Dream Market.
The sudden closure of those big marketplaces have caused paranoia to the entire dark web community. Several Redditors warned others about the incident, with words saying that unexpected DDoS attacks have been made on those targeted markets.
According to users of such markets, either a DDoS attack or a large scale action by law enforcement authorities could make this happen. They pointed out how other major dark web markets such as AlphaBay and the famous Silk Road came under DDoS attack prior to being shut down by law enforcement authorities.
A Reddit moderator for Wall Street said that the dark website was indeed fending off a DDoS attack. "We are facing a DDoS attack at the moment and I guess many other markets as well," he said.
However, with no notification or clarification from those sites' administrators, the exact reason for the sudden disappearance of such marketplaces remains unclear.
The news came after Europol revealed that it had been cooperating with the Dutch National Police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and also the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in a massive trans-continental sweeping that took down two of the dark web's biggest sites at the time, AlphaBay and Hansa.
After those sites were shut down, numerous smaller alternative sites also started to shut down from the dark web.
Following the investigation, the law enforcement agencies claimed they were able to collect information on hundreds of buyers and vendors.
Dutch police went as far as threatening to prosecute both dark web's drug buyers and sellers, informing that they have the addresses of at least 500 dark web drug customers.
After the unexpected shut down activities that took the four big dark websites down, users in some cases, have been redirected to alternative sites.
Three alternative sites for Wall Street and one for Dream Market were accessible. Some other Reddit users said that the Dream Market has been working fine on all its mirrors.