Black Market Reloaded Shuts Down After Site Code Leak

Earlier this month a digital black market called Silk Road was raided and the person behind the operation was arrested. Along with his arrest, federal authorities seized $3.6 million worth of Bitcoins. The website is hosted on Tor and representatives of the secure system stepped forward to say that Silk Road was taken down using detective work and that Tor security had not been broken. In the wake of the closure, Silk Road competitor Black Market Reloaded (BMR) received an influx of former Silk Road users.

In fact, BMR received so many new users that the person behind the black market website had to launch some new virtual private servers hosted by a third-party company. The problem for the black market operator was that one of the VPS administrators leaked the code for the Black Market Reloaded website. The leaked content could reportedly unveil the owners name constituting a significant security breach.

The administrator of Black Market Reloaded told users of the site that the leak meant he could no longer operate. The administrator says that it would be "early 2014 at best" before Black Market Reloaded relaunches.

BMR is described as a more hard-core version of Silk Road also selling guns in addition to illegal drugs and other content. With Silk Road being taken down by federal authorities, it would be a safe bet that law enforcement is also looking at ways to shut down BMR. The administrator behind Black Market Reloaded must be understandably nervous about now.

SOURCE: TheVerge