On Tuesday morning, news circulated on Dread of a possible exit scam running on a popular darknet marketplace. Possibilities include an exit scam or re-configuration of the website. Currently, the issue is ongoing. This will most likely only affect MamaBear and her team as the website is Walletless and Accountless, a mirror to Monopoly Market.
Key Insights
- On May 21st, SuperMarket admin “MamaBear” found that all of the Darknet Markets crypto wallers had been drained
- MamaBear believed the only viable culprit to be FatherBear, who has since gone silent.
- MamaBear announced the issue to the community almost immediately on Dread, providing details and an update with the hopes to get the market back online and even to return customer funds.
- The community has backed MamaBear during this time, with a strong belief in the market and its administrators.
- At this time, all SuperMarket onions are shut down, and orders are paused.
- This will most likely only effect MamaBear and her team as the website is Walletless, and Accountless.
Users of the popular darknet marketplace “SuperMarket” woke up on Tuesday morning to the news that the site’s cold storage escrow and joint-pocket commission wallets had been emptied. Administrators of the marketplace went to Dread minutes after discovering the emptied wallets. The exit scam was allegedly orchestrated by one of the site’s head administrators who is known as “FatherBear.”
Earlier this year, users’ funds on the darknet marketplace were frozen for three days following an unreported bug affecting the site’s performance. Now it’s taken a major upturn with a full throttle attack.
What We Know About The Incident
SuperMarket’s /u/MommaBear head administrator discovered that both the cold storage escrow and joint-pocket (commission) wallets were empty. MommaBear also confirmed that /u/FatherBear is the only other person who had access to marketplace wallets.
According to her Dread post, she said that
“At approximately 02:31 UTC on Tuesday May 21 2024, I discovered that both the cold storage escrow and joint-pocket (commission) wallets were completely empty. Both wallets had sent funds to a the same address that I do not recognise. As soon as I made this discovery, I went through and changed all of our server’s access keys to mitigate any further damage. After doing so I reached out to dread staff to notify them of the situation. FatherBear is the only other person that had access to these wallets and at this time I have no reason to believe they are compromised. At this time I can confidently say FatherBear is in possession of all market funds. It is my belief that they got spooked with the news surrounding Pharoh (Admin Incognito Arrest ) and decided to take the funds and run. At this time, all SuperMarket onions are shut down and orders are paused. I will update you all soon with more information. Thank you for your patience as I navigate this difficult situation.”
MommaBear also stated that SuperMarket’s onion servers are currently shut down and all orders are on hold. In addition, she asked users of the marketplace to remain patient and promised to provide updates as soon as more information became available.
On May 23rd, MamaBear returned to say
“I am still actively working with /u/HugBunter on a solution to ensure everyone is made whole. There are a lot of moving parts and these things take time. Please be patient as we do our best. I have not given up on the community.”
Not All Hope Is Lost
While MamaBear finds herself in a bit of a situation, there has been a surprising amount of support from the Darknet Community. Instead of pointing fingers and refusing to stand by the admin of a market that’s possible exit scamming. They’ve opened arms in support.
One Darknet Vendor, iflipdaily, stated”
“Just so everyone is aware, i had a side deal going on and /u/mommabear was/is handling my escrow for the purchase. she reached out to me so i was could find out from her, that she had nothing to do with this and thankfully my funds weren’t in the markets wallet due to this being a favor, she was doing for me at no cost, so i wouldn’t have to reveal myself to the supplier. she asked me if i wanted to i could get the money back or continue the deal. i really feel bad for her as she helped me get my first push at fe and show that i was a viable vendor. don’t throw shade on her, shes not the culprit.”
This comment alongside others pointed at the fact that not all hope is lost for SuperMarket yet. But for now, there’s not lots to go off on, as the market remains offline.
Brett Johnson, a convicted and reformed cybercriminal who founded the organized cybercrime community Shadowcrew many years ago, mentioned that “the past is filled with examples of similar darknet market exit scams, which tend to happen eventually to all darknet markets that aren’t seized and shut down by federal investigators.”
Johnson further added “The Truth of Darknet Markets? All of them are Exit Scams. The only question is whether law enforcement can shut down the market and arrest its operators before the exit scam takes place.”
Hey there, I’m a dark web geek who’s been around for the last 8 years. More precisely, I’m livedarknet’s senior content writer who’s been writing about darknet marketplaces, tutorials, and cybersecurity stuff for educational purposes.