Evolution Market Staff Member: 130,000BTC Were Stolen

Posted by: DeepDotWeb

March 18, 2015

Another article in the #Evoscam series:

Today DeepDotWeb conducted a short interview with NSWGreat, the now former Evolution market staff member who was the first to publicly announce the Evolution market scam via a post on Reddit. DeepDotWeb inquired about an interview in an attempt shed more light on the situation. Unfortunately, we cannot say that we have learned a great deal of new information regarding a resolution to the scam, but that is not to say that DeepDotWeb did not learn valuable information about the events that lead up to the collapse of the largest darknet market. One must bear in mind that scams of this nature typically don’t hold much hope of ever revealing the true motive behind it.

Proof of ID can be found here, a PGP signed message with the initial version of this interview. (Editor’s note: more information was added later.)

His PGP Key can be verified by checking his Agora Profile: http://agorahooawayyfoe.onion/vendor/NSWGreat#

Who are you? (Vendor etc…)

I’m Bliss, my original personal alias on the Darknet. I became a vendor and named myself NSWGreat, a copy of another vendor SAGreat who was a good friend of mine.

I trafficked heroin, meth, cocaine, GHB, LSD, DMT, oxycodone, DOM and basically everything else you can probably think of when you think of drugs.

What was your role on Evolution marketplace?

My official job title was public relations for the Evolution marketplace.

How long have you been working with them?

I had been working along side Kimble and Verto for about four or five months.

Can you describe your day to day job there?

[My] Day to day job was general administration of the forum, processing scam reports and investigating into vendors who were reported of stealing funds, selling drugs incorrectly labeled and general support for buyers who were distressed about transactions with vendors.</p>

How was your communication with the admins?

I spoke with the admins on a daily basis, I became quite close friends with them. I have said it in the past and I still think it now, despite what they’ve done. They are nice people, too smart for their own good that is for sure. It was surreal.

When did you start feeling that something went wrong?

Evolution runs like clockwork, so as soon as the withdrawals started slowing down and delaying [I knew something was wrong]. We started punishing vendors more harshly than usual (disabling their ability to withdraw their funds). I noticed that automatic withdrawals were disabled, which is odd. Manual withdrawals were being done which explains why it was taking so long.

What did you do when you realized this?

It took me awhile to really accept what was happening, but I went straight to DNM Reddit as I knew this would be the only place they wouldn’t be able to censor.

Can you share any info you had as an insider on what made the admins cam at this time? (maybe they got hacked or something.)

It was time to get out. It is terrifying running these markets.

Can you estimate how much was lost?

I laughed when they said 12m, 33-38m in total was stored across Evolution. Good luck finding it.

$33,000,000 is more than most estimates, how did you get to this number?

I was able to see transaction history. Last I saw, it was at 35m, Withdrawals were being done, There may of been more I rarely check transaction history, In total, the marketplace held 35m In bitcoins in escrow, wallets something around 130k BTC total.

How many sales you were having on evo?

I’d rather not say.

How much did you lose?

Also rather not say.

Will you keep vending? (if so, where?)

Not for much longer, I am having a huge closing down sale for AUS customers: 50% and more. Over on Agora, Its no longer safe for me to be a vendor, so I am clearing my stock.

I have a kilo of cocaine to move and over a hundred sheets (900 blotters) of needlepoint LSD to sell.

This is my profile on Agora: http://agorahooawayyfoe.onion/vendor/NSWGreat

Did you ever suspect any LE involvement in Evolution?..

No, never. The entire team were criminals with roots back to SR and BMR in some shape or another.

Do you think anyone else was cooperating with the admins – like mods or vendors?

None. They did it of their own accord.

Anything else you want to add – warn people / some advice to minimize their losses in future market scams?

Fund decentralized market projects such as CloakCoin and their market, they are the only way for this to work.

Updated: 2015-03-18