Silk Road's Biggest Rival For Buying Illegal Drugs Shuts Down, Too

One of Silk Road's biggest competitors, Black Market Reloaded, has closed down at least temporarily, reports, the Atlantis Blog.

BMR's administrator, who calls himself "Blackopy" told site visitors that the site is going offline for a while and will refund their money and protect their accounts, according to photo of the forum post published by Atlantis Blog.

Like Silk Road, BMR sold all sorts of illegal things, particularly drugs. BMR was also known for selling weapons.

This follows news earlier this month that the FBI seized and shut down Silk Road. In arresting the people allegedly running Silk Road, authorities gained a treasure trove of information on the criminal network involved.

But that's not why BMR closed. Instead it was a technical issue, Blackopy said.

When Silk Road closed, its customers flocked to BMR, causing BMR to have to expand and use web servers owned by a third-party service, BMR's administrator told users.

Someone at the third-party service leaked some website code and the owners of BMR closed down as a precaution to keep the leaked code from causing damage, like revealing their identities or allowing hackers to steal stuff. BMR promises it will be back, though.

In the meantime, there's still at least one other black market site around, Sheep Marketplace. We'll see how it fairs.