Darknet Utopia Website Seized By Dutch Authorities

The dark side of the Internet has been lying there underneath the regular lol cats, YouTube videos, social networks, games and other innocuous websites that the Internet is made up of.  Occasionally though, it comes into the light of regular media, like the case of The Silk Road.  Along similar lines of enquiry, Police and government agencies all over the globe have been working for numerous months to shut down websites that are part of the hidden Internet and nearly always trade in illegal items.

The Utopia Marketplace was part of the Darknet; the underbelly of the Internet

The Silk Road site was shut down by US authorities and the mastermind behind the marketplace was arrested.  Law enforcement agencies in other countries are also cracking down on similar sites and the latest to fall into the police dragnet is called Utopia Marketplace. The most  recent available reports indicate that the Dutch Police seized Utopia Marketplace. The Dutch authorities apparently took no time at all in taking down the Utopia Marketplace. The website reportedly only launched last week. The homepage for the website was recently replaced with a page showing the Dutch Police emblem and a disclaimer which read, “This hidden service has been seized. By the Dutch National Police.”

Strangely though, whilst the homepage of the site showed the Dutch Police warning, the forums for the site were still up and running for some time. It is also uncertain if any of the people that were running the site were arrested or not.

An example of some of the goods allegedly available on the Darknet site.

When the site was first defaced from its original content, there was some chatter that a hacker had been responsible for the disruption to the website. However, Dutch police later confirmed the authorities had seized the site. Further details regarding this story will become available next week, if the Dutch authorities are to be believed.  As always, if you have any sensible comments regarding this story, please leave your comments in the section below.

[Images via csinfotechblog & theepochtimes]

SOURCE: http://www.slashgear.com/darknet-website-utopia-marketplace-seized-by-dutch-police-12316617/