Wall Street Market

What Happened

Wall Street Market was the second-largest market in 2019. In late April 2019, the site administrators began an exit scam, withdrawing user funds over several days. Simultaneously, European law enforcement was executing a coordinated takedown. On May 3, 2019, Europol and the BKA arrested three German nationals in connection with the market. The operators had managed to withdraw ~11M EUR worth of crypto before their arrest. One user, unable to recover funds, informed on the operators to LE — demonstrating that desperate users will cooperate with law enforcement.

Key Lessons

• Slow exit scams attract both user attention and LE scrutiny
• Operators who inform on each other accelerate enforcement
• Exit scams and LE operations can happen simultaneously