Darknet Market AlphaBay Moderator Pleads Guilty – 20 Years of Prison

Bryan Connor Herrell, 25, AlphaBay Moderator pleads guilty for his job role in the fraudulent organization. Herrell’s job role is to resolve disputes between vendors and purchasers.

The AlphaBay was an illicit market place operated on the darknet, vendors, and customers engaged in exchanging different types of illicit goods such as stolen identity information, credit card numbers and other illegal items.

The market was taken down on 20 July 2017, as a result of law enforcement operations, led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and the Dutch National Police, with the support of Europol.

Before takedown AlphaBay had more than 200 000 users, 40 000 vendors and more than 1 billion was transacted in the market since it was created.

According to court documents, Herrell went by the name “Penissmith” and “Botah” in the marketplace, his job role is to settle a dispute between the parties and serving as a scam watcher.

Alexandre Cazes who alleged to be the founder of the AlphaBay market arrested on June 1, 2017, for his involvement in AlphaBay, his laptop was seized.

Authorities obtained Cazes Laptop in an unencrypted state “gents and officers found several text files that identified the passwords/passkeys for the AlphaBay website, the AlphaBay servers and other online identities associated with AlphaBay.”

Herrell is scheduled to be sentenced on May 18, he may face a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and Cazes’ indictment was dismissed as he found dead in his jail cell on July 12, but the investigation is still active.