Someone on the Dark Net Is Offering to Steal Cars on Demand

The dark net is a space where anything is for sale. Whether it's high quality heroin, assault rifles, child porn, or the expertise of a hacker, getting hold of black market wares is pretty easy if you know how to use Bitcoin and Tor. Now, someone is claiming to provide a custom, international car theft service.

Over on Evolution, a marketplace that recently celebrated its first birthday, vendor "Citra" is offering cars stolen during 2014 and 2015.

"BMW, Toyota, Jaguar, Audi, MB and others," the advert says. At the moment, the service is allegedly available in Germany, Sweden, France, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK, and the US. The flat rate for the service is 23.9807 bitcoins, which is just over $6,500 at today's exchange rates. In case you hadn't noticed, that is ridiculously cheap for a high performance car.

How it works is, at least judging by the item description, fairly straightforward. You place your order with a click of a mouse, and give Citra your mobile phone number. It then takes somewhere between three and seven days for a car of your chosen model to be stolen, which is delivered to your city and particular district. Finally, Citra claims, a text is sent to you in the dead of night detailing the car's location. The key will be hidden on one of the tires.

"We steal cars only by a private customer orders," Citra writes. "You can order a model,body type,color,engine (Diezel / petrol)"

Citra, however, hasn't provided any details on how the stolen cars will not simply be tracked down by law enforcement after they've been purchased.

One might quickly jump to the conclusion that this is a scam, designed to entice anyone who wants to anonymously purchase a relatively cheap car. But any purchase would be handled with Evolution's escrow system, which is designed to only release the funds to the vendor once the buyer has received their item.

I sent Citra a series of questions through Evolution's messaging system in order to clarify the advert, but he didn't answer any of them. Instead, he commented on my interviewing approach. "hi, Your questions are very open. Furthermore, I have never before lost communication with journalists and even such a high level as you," Citra wrote.

At the time of print, it looks like nobody has yet made a purchase, as no feedback for the various car adverts has been left. Citra does have an otherwise good rating on the marketplace from selling other items, such as LSD and tutorials on how to make money from purchased credit card details.

Last week, however, I noticed two pieces of feedback on another of Citra's listings that may ring alarm bells. Once user claimed that Citra had manipulated the Auto Finalize date: the length of time before a buyer's bitcoins are automatically released to the seller, as the system assumes the buyer has received their product.

"You're a dirty little scammer is what you are," the user wrote. "It really is sad that you have to go through these measures to acquire some funds and it really does demonstrate you're no use to society or anyone in that matter. You don't do things the right and legitimate way only degrading yourself and also portraying yourself as a low life scum that scams BTC pretty much."

Without hearing back from someone who has successfully purchased a car from Citra, we can't be sure if the service is as advertised. Regardless, the dark net remains the go-to place if you want nearly any type of illegal item delivered to your door.