Have cops seized Abacus Market? Rumours swirl as dark web drugs bazaar shuts down

The drugs and fraud marketplace Abacus Marketplace has disappeared from the dark web, sparking rumours that it has been snatched by law enforcement or shut down in a $500,000 exit scam.

Paranoia is running rife in the digital underworld right due to the recent seizure of Archetype, which Europol described as the "longest-running" dark web marketplace.

Criminals and consumers of illegal products started to worry that something was not adding up about Abacus on June 30th after deposits for purchases made on the site started to disappear.

HugBunter, founder of the Reddit-style dark web message board Dread, then publicly announced that he believed the site was gone forever.

Although HugBunter said that the truth about what happened is currently "up in the air", he is "mostly inclined" to believe the incident was an exit scam - a type of fraud also known as a rug pull in which the owners of an apparently reliable, established marketplace make off with all the funds held in escrow.

What happened to the funds held by Abacus Market?

HugBunter alleged that more than £300,000 was moved out of an Abacus-owned wallet on June 29, before another wallet was used to spirit away a further $220,000 on the day the servers went down.

The Dread founder then personally spoke to Abacus CEO Vito, who was frustrated with an issue which stopped him syncing links to the clearnet version of Daunt - a dark web directory service.

"The frustration from him is not behaviour I have ever witnessed from him," he wrote in an announcement published on Dread. "Alone, this either describes an exit scam, where he tried to hide the funds moving on the 28th by switching the hot wallet, or potentially this was a hack and these funds were stolen and so the hot wallet was moved afterwards for whatever reason."

The Dread founder revealed that Abacus previously suffered a theft of between $60,000 and $100,000 due to a withdrawal exploit.

READ MORE: Coinbase "clamps down on crypto payments to dark web drug dealers"

"With the hack theory, this is NOT a lot of money compared to what I assume Vito has earned over the years," HugBunter said. "He covered losses [from the theft] and didn't take commission for a while, as to repay everything into the market.

"He immediately told me of this and asked for advice on the situation and made it right, which did instill some form of trust for me going forward too. If this was the case now, I do believe he would have reached out. I think this is something that also points more to an exit scam, or it could simply be both hack -> exit scam."

However, whilst "paranoia is still high" from the Archetype bust, HugBunter has been in touch with Vito and does not believe he was speaking to a law enforcement (LE) handler at the time. However, Vito and two other Abacus mods called Byte and Sonny are currently "MIA", adding to the mystery.

"This could also be that they are simply complicit in an exit scam," he added. "The movement of funds is another reason I don't believe it to be LE behind this."

Countdown to the end of Abacus

Although some users are hoping that Abacus will beat the count and rise again, HugBunter believes it has disappeared for good.

He continued: "I do not believe Abacus will return. What a crazy few months we're having, following such a long quiet period. Stay safe everyone."

Hundreds of people have now left comments on Dread speculating about what happened to Abacus Market.

"This situation screams exit scam more than a law enforcement seizure," one person wrote. "The way funds were shuffled between hot wallets right before the shutdown, combined with the admin’s sudden disappearance and erratic communication, fits the classic pattern of a planned cash-out rather than a clean LE takedown.

"If this were a genuine seizure, you’d expect more coordinated action — seizure banners on the site, arrests being made public, or official statements. The sporadic fund movements after the fact don’t match how LE typically handles asset freezes."

In a Dread thread named "there are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen", another user wrote: "It's been a relentless few weeks. Money lost, time wasted, not being sure who the fuck to trust.

"These past few week on the markets have been wild and it reminds me that this shit is not a game. I feel for all who have lost funds to this bullshit especially vendors

"Must be difficult suffering multiple market collapses so close together."

Abacus in numbers

The blockchain data platform Chainalysis said that Abacus Market was the highest-earning dark marketplace among Western customers in 2024, recieving $43.3 million on-chain.

"On Abacus Market, the US, Canada, Germany, Australia, and the UK have the highest number of listings," it wrote. "In the US, there’s a large diversity in the types of products sold, including counterfeit pills.

"While the US market is best characterised by its diverse product offerings, other countries offer regional specialities. In Colombia, for instance, many of the vendor listings are for cocaine or Infrastructure-as-a-Service."

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