By July 2017, AlphaBay was ten times the size of its predecessor Silk Road[27] (which was busted in October 2013), had over 369,000 listings,[1] 400,000 users,[4] was facilitating USD$600,000-$800,000 of transactions per day,[28] and had reportedly built a strong reputation.[1][29] However, a series of elementary operational security errors lead to its downfall: About the time the service first began in December 2014, Cazes used his Hotmail address [email protected] as the 'From' address in system generated welcome and password reset emails, which he also used for his LinkedIn profile and his legitimate computer repair business in Canada.[1] Cazes used a pseudonym to run the site which he had previously used (e.g., in carding and tech forums) since at least 2008, and variously advertised this identity as the "designer", "administrator" and "owner" of the site[1] When Cazes was arrested, he was logged into his laptop performing an administrative reboot on an AlphaBay server in direct response to a law-enforcement created artificial system failure; furthermore, encryption was wholly absent on said laptop.[30][1] Cazes' laptop reportedly contained an unencrypted personal net worth statement mapping all global assets across multiple jurisdictions, conveniently leading police to complete asset seizure.[1] The servers were hosted at a company in Canada directly linked to his person.[1] The servers contained multiple constantly open (unencrypted) hot cryptocurrency wallets.[1] Cazes' flashy use of proceeds to purchase property, passports and luxury cars and frequent on-line boasting about his financial successes, including posting videos of himself driving luxury cars acquired through illegal proceeds, not only revealed his geographical location, it perforce made denying connection to the service impossible.[1] Assets acquired through proceeds were held in a variety of accounts directly linked to Cazes, his wife and companies they owned in Thailand (the same jurisdiction they lived), as well as directly held personal accounts in Liechstenstein, Cyprus, Switzerland and Antigua.[1] Cazes' statements about the goal of the site — "launched in September 2014 and its goal is to become the largest eBay-style underworld marketplace" — helped to legally establish intent.[1]