I just read the story of Alexandre Cazes and I have to say that it’s one of those dark web cases that really sticks with you. Everything began when the U.S. Department of Justice announced the ban of AlphaBay—the largest darknet marketplace that had ever existed in the world—on July 4, 2017. The very next day, this 25-year-old Canadian man was arrested in Thailand.

Cazes was from Quebec and, apparently, lived a fairy-tale life: luxurious villas, high-end cars, millions in cryptocurrencies. But in reality, he was the founder of an underground criminal network. Interesting how he managed to build all of that, right?

The dark web itself wasn’t created for crime. It was developed by tech enthusiasts to protect privacy, through software like Tor. But of course, criminals discovered it and turned it into a global black market. On AlphaBay, you could buy everything: drugs, malware, fake documents. Users paid with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which made it all practically traceable.

Cazes began running AlphaBay in 2014, and the platform grew enormously. It even surpassed Silk Road, which had already been shut down. We’re talking about over 40,000 vendors and 200,000 regular users. How much money did he make in fees? Hundreds of millions a year. He lived in Thailand like a tycoon, investing in hotels and hospitality properties as well. His family and friends had a hard time believing what he was really doing.

For years, international agencies tried to track him down without success. The servers were distributed around the world, and anonymity was almost impenetrable. Even agents trying to trace him by buying contraband goods on the dark web couldn’t link it back to him. Until he made an apparently trivial mistake.

At the beginning of AlphaBay, each new user received a welcome email. That email contained Cazes’s real address. He quickly patched the security flaw, but an anonymous informant had already saved that communication and turned it over to investigators. From there, everything accelerated. They identified his social media, found photos and videos from his youth, discovered that he had been a free software developer, and learned that he ran a tech company in Canada. The trail led them straight to Bangkok.

With help from Thai police, investigators uncovered his various properties in the city and the surrounding areas. After weeks of surveillance, they orchestrated a brilliant plan: they staged a car accident. An undercover woman—apparently a nervous driver—crashed into the gate of the villa. When Cazes came down to check, dozens of FBI agents and local police surrounded him. His only fatal mistake was leaving his computer unencrypted. The agents found access to cryptocurrency accounts, critical passwords, and server addresses.

He was arrested and charged with drug trafficking, identity theft, and money laundering. But while he was awaiting extradition to the United States, Alexandre Cazes was found dead in a Bangkok prison. Officially, it was suicide, but the details remain unclear. Police confiscated assets worth hundreds of millions: cryptocurrencies, luxury cars, and real estate.

What’s striking is that with Cazes’s downfall, new dark web markets emerged almost immediately. It’s like an endless game of cat and mouse between law enforcement and criminals. The dark web keeps evolving, and who knows how many other “kings” of the black market are emerging right now in the depths of the network.