In the past few months, authorities have been running a sting operation to close down illegal sites selling drugs on the dark web and were quite successful. Authorities closed down 50 dark net accounts, arrested 61 people and got hold of $7 million.
However, with the sting operations leading to the closure of some accounts, users moved to other sites one of them being Wall Street Market (WSM), a more recent black market, leading to the latter having an influx of new users. Many users deposited their coins into Wall Street Market escrow accounts.
However, now have to come to terms with rumors that WSM has pulled a fast one on them and walked out with accumulative of $30 million worth of digital coins. Suspicious of Wall Street Market pulling an exit scam were raised after users experienced difficulties while accessing the platform. Their suspicions were followed by a message from a moderator by name Nebula who informed users the platform’s bitcoin server had crashed resulting in technical difficulties. Per Nebula’s explanation, malfunctioning of the server led to the loss of synchronization with the platform’s blockchain solution leading to loss of control over the wallets.
Users Blackmailed
Through an exit strategy, WSM users have been scammed leading to many losing coins in WSM escrow accounts. The coins lost were in holding for placing orders for different products from WSM site. However, that’s not all, chatter on Dread Forum shows users are being blackmailed by support staff from WSM platform. In the messages, users were told their data which includes shipping addresses together with their bitcoin addresses would be sent to the FBI and Europol if they don’t pay. The support staff got hold of the user’s details from disputes order tickets which were submitted by users to solve issues on orders.
Furthermore, reports on Dread Forum shows WSM market manager moderator Med3I1n is behind the blackmail. Upon discovering Med3I1n is behind the blackmail, he was banned from Dread Forum.
In a bid to help other users from being scammed, another administrator took over Med3I1n privileges and went ahead to send messages to users urging them to stop depositing funds on Wall Street Market account. Although the exit scam strategy hasn’t been confirmed, chatter on Dread Forum points to it being a scam.
