In 2017, the takedowns of AlphaBay and Hansa marked one of the most sophisticated law-enforcement operations ever conducted against the dark web. Codenamed Operation Bayonet, the joint effort by the FBI, Europol, and the Dutch National Police dismantled two of the largest illicit marketplaces of their time. Nearly seven years later, the case still raises questions about operational security, criminal adaptation, and the long-term effectiveness of darknet shutdowns.

Operation Bayonet: A Two-Pronged Strategy

The takedown relied on a carefully coordinated dual approach. While AlphaBay was abruptly shut down, Hansa was covertly seized and repurposed as a law-enforcement honeypot.

Prong 1: AlphaBay’s Takedown

Launched in 2014, AlphaBay became the largest darknet marketplace after Silk Road’s closure. At its peak, it hosted over 40,000 vendors, 350,000 illicit listings, and facilitated transactions estimated at USD 1 billion in cryptocurrency. These included drugs, stolen identities, malware, counterfeit goods, and firearms.

In July 2017, Thai authorities arrested Alexandre Cazes, a Canadian national identified as AlphaBay’s founder (“Alpha02”). Servers were seized and the marketplace went dark without warning, sparking rumors of an exit scam. Cazes later died in custody while awaiting extradition to the United States, and his global assets and cryptocurrency holdings were seized by U.S. authorities.

Prong 2: Hansa as a Honeypot

Unbeknownst to users, Dutch police had secretly taken control of Hansa weeks earlier. When AlphaBay shut down, users and vendors migrated en masse to Hansa, causing an eightfold increase in activity. During this period, law enforcement quietly modified the platform to collect extensive intelligence, including messages, transaction histories, PGP keys, and user credentials.

This operation provided unprecedented insight into global cybercriminal networks and led to numerous follow-up investigations and arrests. Europol described it as a milestone in international cybercrime cooperation.

Who Ran These Marketplaces?

AlphaBay’s collapse stemmed from basic operational security failures. Investigators traced Cazes through a marketplace welcome email linked to his personal online accounts. As FBI agents later noted, overconfidence in anonymity ultimately led to his downfall.

Hansa, meanwhile, was operated by two unidentified German administrators, later arrested following the platform’s seizure. Their servers across Europe were confiscated in a coordinated international effort.

AlphaBay 2.0 and Its Collapse

In 2021, AlphaBay resurfaced under the leadership of “DeSnake,” a former senior administrator. AlphaBay 2.0 introduced stricter marketplace rules and a self-destruct mechanism known as AlphaGuard, designed to prevent law-enforcement takeovers.

However, in 2023, AlphaGuard was reportedly triggered, permanently shutting down the platform when DeSnake failed to disable it in time. Since then, DeSnake has not reappeared publicly.

Conclusion

The AlphaBay and Hansa takedowns demonstrated the power of international cooperation and intelligence-driven operations. Yet they also revealed a persistent reality: shutting down marketplaces disrupts cybercrime, but does not eliminate it. Dark web ecosystems adapt, re-form, and evolve—ensuring that the battle between law enforcement and illicit online markets remains ongoing.