The Empire marketplace on the Dark web has recently closed abruptly, following a major DDoS attack and numerous prosecutions.
According to the latest reports, the administrators of the Empire page were struggling to keep their "business" open, and the recent blow from the attacks left them with no choice but to leave the illegal market once and for all.
Of course, as always, the sudden disappearance of Empire destroyed the trust of its customers darknet in the so-called "escrow" systems used for these markets.
Europol: hundreds of arrests in Darknet
The Israeli cyber threat monitoring company KELA has released some information on the subject, as well as some snapshots. The company analyzed darknet forums and managed to gather information about the next steps of customers and sellers who were left without a purchase.
After analysis from many posts on forums like Dread and TheHub, where darknet users communicate freely, there seems to be a consensus that most will begin to move their activities and communications to the three popular dark sites: Versus, White House Market, and Icarus , as well as in the application counterchangeof Wickr messages,' said Victoria Kivilevich, an intelligence analyst at KELA.
In another forum reviewed by KELA, a 'former Empire supplier', the Arbeitsamt said it lost €5.000 with their sudden closure.
I lost my main source of income. Empire had so much traffic,' said the seller, announcing his plans to eventually join Monopoly.
Shopping free of charge
Many of the darknet marketplaces report that they offer some of their services for free, to attract people after the closure of Empire, such as Icarus
However, these alternatives options offer no guarantee that the same will not happen to them as happened to Empire.
The post assures potential customers that the seller had no intention of defrauding anyone or disappearing with their money and that they themselves have been seriously affected by the scam of Empire.
But most importantly, the seller shares details about his reappearance in Wickr and the White House Market.
The Empire Marketplace was one of the largest and most popular illegal sites in the dark web that engaged in the illicit shopping of drugs, chemicals, jewelry, and credit card numbers using Bitcoin (BTC), Litecoin (LTC), and Monero (XMR).
