Sheep Marketplace, a Huge Silk Road Rival, Was Just Shut Down After Millions in Bitcoins Stolen

One by one they go.

Image via Wikipedia Commons

In the weeks before Silk Road was resurrected after the original was dramatically shut down, other deep web marketplaces that specialize in drugs and other illegal goods had their chance to shine, one of which was Sheep Marketplace. Now, that seems to have ended.

Sheep Marketplace was taken offline by its owner after they discovered that more than $6 million in Bitcoins were stolen by a vendor on the site. The site was only accessible through the Tor network, and sold things like marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy, LSD, and other psychedelics. Users that have tried to log on to the site are met with this notification:

EBook101 reportedly took advantage of a security flaw in the site, and managed to steal 5,400 Bitcoin. What security it was, though, is still up in the air, and users are pissed. Many users are saying that the site's owner, Tomáš Jiřikovský, pulled a scam on customers and just ran off with the money, and people were already suspicious of him late last month. One Reddit user took out their frustration in a post: "You run a site partially dedicated to thieves and scammers selling their wares, yet somehow wonder how it ends up getting robbed?" 

Jiřikovský said he had nothing to do with the heist in a recent Facebook post. 

Sheep Marketplace is not directing to another site called Tormarket, but the attention isn't wanted. “First of all, we are not associated with the sheep team,” wrote Tormarket. “The sheep admin is linking us on their frontpage. This is the worst PR we can get right now. Please admin remove the link. Please. And most important thing: delete all data and backups to keep the users safe.”

Users said they found a Bitcoin wallet that has the amount of Bitcoins that were stolen, and are attributing that to proof that the owner and administrators were sucking the money out of the site and into their own account.

Another Silk Road rival, BlackMarket Reloaded, has also closed its doors, saying they wouldn't have been able to support the number of users coming over from the Sheep Marketplace closure. 

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