WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday said law enforcement would shut down the dark web marketplace AlphaBay, saying it allowed thousands of vendors to sell illegal drugs.
AlphaBay mysteriously went offline earlier this month. It was widely considered the biggest online black market for drugs, estimated to host daily transactions totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars.
"The dark net is not a place to hide," Attorney General Jeff Sessions said at a Washington, D.C., news conference announcing the action.
The Justice Department said law enforcement partners in the Netherlands had also taken down Hansa Market, another dark web marketplace.
Reporting by Dustin Volz; Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu and Julia Edwards Ainsley; Editing by Bernadette Baum