Europa Market Exit Scams with Fake Seizure Banner

Not even two weeks after the Avior Market ordeal, a second marketplace disappeared with stolen funds. The market, Europa Market, did things differently; instead of vanishing, market administrators pretended that law enforcement had seized the marketplace. Market visitors now face a fake seizure banner instead of a familiar login page when accessing the site.

Skip to the “seizure banner”

Like Avior, Europa had a smaller userbase than some of the top or more well-known markets. Europa was one of the first mainstream marketplaces based on Tochka/Point Market. According to OnionLtd, “[some] of the development took place on Tochka’s git server.”

Dread users first noticed the fake seizure banner on May 19. The vendor Dutchkingz posted “Europamarket has been Seized.” Users identified the banner as fake within minutes of the thread’s creation. The banner fails to hold up to even the most cursory glance. And the spelling makes it even more obvious.

BadMedicine, in a comment in the thread linked above:

The Europa Market "Seizure Banner" (click to enlarge)

Exit Scam vs. Hack

Some Dread users have suggested that an unidentified party had hacked the marketplace. In this scenario, the hacker created for the fake seizure banner.

ShakyBeats, a mentally sound moderator of /d/darknetmarkets, doubts the hacker theory.

Most hackers don’t give a fuck about the market. Look at pax romana they were hacked people stole coins, hackers don’t give two fucks what happens with the market. A hacker would love to come blast it all over dread and every other forum that they stole coins from a market. Plus market staff would love to come on here and say they were hacked, and not exit scamming. If a hacker also wanted to put a seized notice up they would probably just go get one from an actual seized website. Not make one with spelling errors, and shitty resolution.

Plenty of markets that exit scam have just closed up shop, they don’t all leave it open for more deposits.

Market Details

OnionLtd, the creator of OnionTree.org, first noticed Europa Market in November 2019. The market launched in January 2020.

Here is the market’s own description of Europa Market:

Multiple vendor accounts, ranging from free (limited to 5 listings, higher commission rate, etc) to 100 EUR. You can find more information about the different types of accounts here: http://europamk24ai3hjz.onion/verification/plan
Referrals can earn you money! Every member that you refer, using the referral system (http://europamk24ai3hjz.onion/referrals), will earn you money every time they place an order. You will receive a percentage, based off of the total amount of the order from the referred user, plus the account type you have.
Friendly staff is one of our biggest features, as we strive to provide a friendly and mature relationship with our users, no matter if they are a customer who’s never bought a single item or a vendor who sells a million items a day. Everyone is treated EQUAL here at Europa Market. Should you ever need help, you can always visit the support page (http://europamk24ai3hjz.onion/support) or message one of the staff members, someone should always be available to help.