The dark web market place Evolution is believed to have executed an exit scam.

Overnight the illegal drugs trading website on the Dark Web known as “Evolution” has disappeared into thin air.

A lot of the dark web markets suffer from downtime and technical issues but in comparison Evolution has built a reliable reputation with 97% uptime.

Some users are posting on Reddit that they believe the sites own administrators may have collected all the Bitcoin held in their accounts and ran away with an estimated $12 million or possibly more.

An Evolution volunteer moderator posted on Reddit on Tuesday that:

“the admins are preparing to exit scam with all the funds”

The site was used as a replacement for the popular black market Silk Road which was taken down by the FBI 18 months ago. At current there is no indication that law enforcement took the new black market site down and users are concerned that they froze peoples withdrawals under the cover up that they had technical difficulties.

The market and forum went offline on Tuesday without an opportunity for drug buyers and sellers to withdraw any Bitcoin they had left in their account.

If Evolution’s administrators did steal their users’ funds stored on the site it’s not clear just how much they would have profited. The market had nearly 20,000 illegal product listings including drugs, weapons and stolen credit cards – the sum could easily be tens of millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin.

Evolution is known for its looser sense of morality with the original Silk Road only selling victimless contraband, Evolution allowed stolen card information. One of the founders had previously run a site known as the Tor Carder Forum, devoted purely to credit card fraud.

With that type of criminal mindset it has caused their users to worry whether they have also been a victim.

Many community members are set to lose thousands of dollars and the threats to the administrators have already started with one user saying:

“24 hours (and that is being generous) to make this right and re-open the market, and allow people access to their funds. Once that time passes — my crystal ball starts talking and unless you’ve changed identities and moved, you will be F—-D.”

Another user begged the administrators not to do it:

“Don’t do this to us Evo staff please. I owe money and I can’t pay if this is true. My life’s in danger. Please don’t be true please”.