The mystery behind the disappearance of darknet marketplace AlphaBay may have been solved, though not happily.

Reports claim that the service, which allowed the sale of drugs, hacking tools and other illegal items, was shut down following a global law enforcement operation that led to the arrest of an owner of the site in Thailand, who subsequently took his own life. Twenty-six-year-old Canadian citizen Alexander Cazes, who is believed to be DeSnake, one of two owners of AlphaBay, was arrested in Thailand on July 5 by local police acting on an international arrest warrant issued by U.S. authorities June 30.

Described by local press as having lived in Thailand for eight years and married to a Thai woman, Cazes is reported to have committed suicide in his cell at the Narcotics Suppression Bureau building in Laksi district in Bangkok on June 12. The dates are the important part of the story: Cazes was arrested July 5, the same day AlphaBay disappeared.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Cazes’ arrest was part of a global operation that involved police in the U.S., Canada and Thailand. It also involved raids on two residences and a business in Quebec. The Montreal Gazette reports that the raids “were part of a larger, international investigation involving the FBI and other agencies” into the sale of merchandise on the darknet, a shady part of the Internet accessible only through special software.

There are a number of outstanding questions regarding the demise of AlphaBay. The major one is solid proof that Cazes actually was DeSnake, something that is disputed by some on social media. The Bangkok Post reported that when Cazes was arrested, police impounded four luxury Lamborghini cars registered in his name and papers for three houses with a combined value of 400 million baht ($11.7 million), a rather large sum for somebody who described his occupation as “computer programmer.”

The second question is whether the police managed to seize the computers hosting AlphaBay, or alternatively whether the other owner of the site, known as “‎alpha02,” closed the site down himself and fled with the funds. If he did, which is a real possibility given that there has been no confirmation of seized servers, that would mean that AlphaBay’s disappearance would still be an “exit scam,” albeit one undertaken to allow alpha02 to flee from law enforcement officials.

The third question is whether Cazes actually committed suicide or something untoward happened to him while in custody. Although most reports suggest that his motivation for suicide was to avoid being extradited to the United States, others on social media aren’t so convinced by the official line. One person wrote that it “sounds like they killed him after he told them where he was hiding extra cash.”

Image: TheAppleEX/Wikimedia Commons