![]() White House Market was also known for its exceptional digital security, dependable customer service, and, perhaps ironically, its ethics: It didn’t allow vendors to sell child pornography, offer murder for hire, or market weapons, explosives, or poisons. On the high end, Christin estimates that sales could have reached $120 million, which would mean the site’s admins walked away with nearly $5 million in their pockets. ![]() Nicolas Christin, an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University whose research focuses on online crime modelling, security economics, and cryptocurrency, estimates that White House Market facilitated at least $35 million in sales, meaning the administrators’ take-home pay could have been at least $1.3 million over the past two years. It’s unclear how much WHM’s founders made since starting the site in August 2019 but it charged a 4 percent commission on all sales via an almost-untraceable cryptocurrency called Monero. Whether White House Market and its administrators are under ongoing criminal investigation is an open question. A select few of the dark net vendor accounts identified were sourced to White House Market, according to court documents. On Tuesday, less than a month after White House Market shut down operations, the Department of Justice announced the results of Operation Dark HunTor-a sweeping, international dark web takedown that resulted in 150 arrests, along with the seizure of weapons, drugs, and more than $31 million in cryptocurrency and cash. But unlike Walter White’s fictional operation, this one had a global presence, with vendors and buyers stationed all around the world, although most transactions were conducted in English. That final listing matches the site’s theme, which features Walter White from Breaking Bad on the banner. ![]() Going by their advertised numbers, White House Market had around 3,000 vendors, whose listings included credit card and bank fraud, forged documents, illegal and prescription drugs like cannabis, ecstasy, opioids like heroin and oxycodone, hallucinogenic drugs, including ketamine and PCP, cocaine, steroids, and amphetamines or meth. Like other dark web markets, it was accessible only on anonymity browsers like Tor and I2P. “We may come back some time in the future with a different project or we may not.” The letter was signed by WHM’s lead administrator, who is known only by his online handle, “mr_white.”Īt the time of its closing, the platform had nearly 900,000 users, of which more than a third-roughly 326,000-were active. ![]() “Thanks everybody for your business, trust, support and of course for placing decent amounts of money in our pockets,” the letter read. The site’s one-page resignation letter was short on details, saying simply that the White House Market had “reached our goal” and that “now, according to plan,” the site was shutting down. ![]() So when WHM unexpectedly closed on October 1, it came as a shock to the platform’s dedicated user base. But among users of the dark web, “WHM” was, for years, the go-to online marketplace for illegal drugs and fraudulent credit cards.ĭespite never reaching the peak trading volumes of its more-famous cousins, Silk Road or AlphaBay, White House Market had established itself as one of the most popular-and secure-markets on the dark web. The few public references to the website are on Reddit forums or specialty tech blogs. You’ve probably never heard of the White House Market. ![]()
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