The neighbors had their suspicions. The young Canadian accused of masterminding the world’s leading “darknet” Internet marketplace lived a seemingly quiet life for more than a year with his Thai girlfriend in a middle-class neighborhood on the outskirts of Bangkok.
However, the flashy cars he drove stood out.
There was the nearly US$1 million, metallic gray Lamborghini. There was the Porsche and then the Mini Cooper for his girlfriend. All in an area where people drive pickup trucks and children tool around on plastic tricycles.
Photo: AP
The neighbors thought 25-year-old Alexandre Cazes worked in the hotel business.
However, according to the US Department of Justice, he was the mastermind of AlphaBay, an Internet marketplace that traded in illegal drugs, firearms and counterfeit goods.
By the time authorities closed in on July 5, Cazes had amassed a US$23 million fortune as the site’s creator and administrator, court documents show.
On Thursday, department officials gave details of the global police operation that brought down Cazes, who authorities say hanged himself in his Thai jail cell a week after his arrest, and dealt a serious blow to illicit Internet commerce.
Cazes’ stepmother, Kathy Gauthier, expressed surprise at the allegations, saying: “We do not understand how he could have been the person described by the FBI, that’s just not his personality.”
“Alexandre was always a good boy without any kind of trouble in his past. He was peaceful and anti-drugs. We always thought his wealth came from investments in cryptocurrency, not from a ‘Darkmarket [sic],’” Gauthier wrote in a private Facebook message to reporters.
She was apparently referring to “darknet.”
“He was raised in a good home by good parents, but now we are exhausted and simply want to accept the situation,” she wrote.
Interviews with Cazes’ neighbors paint a picture of a young man who displayed flashes of ostentation, but otherwise seemed unassuming.
“He was with his girlfriend,” said a neighbor, Hassanupong Pootrakulchote. “Around New Year’s or Christmas I saw some of his friends come over and they would have a little party. There were Thai people, some of them were his girlfriend’s relatives ... Other than that it’s mostly quiet, nothing flashy or anything.”
Nothing except the expensive cars, which were completely out of place in the neighborhood where homes cost less than US$120,000.
“Why does he have a Lamborghini? Why does he have a Porsche or Mini Cooper?” Hassanupong said. “There are recent news reports about people laundering money and that sort of thing, but like I said, I thought he was in the hotel business.”
Much of Cazes’ fortune was in digital currencies, the court documents show.
He bought real estate and luxury cars, including the US$900,000 Lamborghini, and pursued “economic citizenship” in Liechtenstein, Cyprus and Thailand.
He used what he claimed was a Web design company, EBX Technologies, as a front, the indictment said.
One neighbor, who asked not to be named because the case involves crime, said Cazes rarely left the house before noon.
She said she got her first good look at him one day when he was outside, trying to photograph a monitor lizard that had crawled out of a deserted field nearby.
“We smiled at each other, that’s it,” she said.
Cazes’ own carelessness apparently tripped him up — not the underlying security technology AlphaBay used.
According to the indictment, he accidentally broadcast his personal Hotmail address in welcome messages sent to new users.
When he was tracked down and arrested in Thailand, Cazes was logged into the AlphaBay Web site as its administrator, allowing investigators access to passwords and other information, it said.
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