sheep marketplace was an anonymous marketplace set up as a tor hidden service .

it launched in march 2013 and was one of the lesser known sites to gain popularity with the well publicized closure of the silk road marketplace later that year .

it ceased operation in december 2013 , when it announced it was shutting down after a vendor stole $ 6 million worth of users ' bitcoins .

sheep marketplace

sheep marketplace rose to prominence after the fbi shut down the illegal silk road marketplace in october .
divulging the information gleaned from the anonymous hacker . it turns out the unnamed marketplace was sheep marketplace .
sheep marketplace scam scheme figured out . scammer working together with bitcoin tumbling service .
nearly a month before sheep marketplace shut down , its alleged creator was doxed .
silk road - like sheep marketplace scams users ; over 39k bitcoins worth $ 40 million . . .
what do you think about the sheep marketplace operators facing jail time ? let us know in the comments below .
it would be shutting down due to an inability to absorb a massive influx of new users leaving sheep marketplace .
even before the mysterious leaker’s help , branwen smelled something fishy with the goings - on at sheep marketplace . “the veriest google search [ of sheep marketplace ] would turn up that clearnet site , ” wrote branwen in his reddit post
though sheep marketplace calls the thief a vendor , and though the site was a drug marketplace , lichtman denies that gibson and mackert were either drug dealers or even buying drugs .
as a side effect of the sheep marketplace heist and shutdown , another silk road competitor , blackmarket reloaded , has closed doors , claiming the site wouldn ' t be able to sustain the migration of users and vendors from sheep marketplace .
in another deep web related news , the south moravian law enforcement agency is charging tomáš jiřikovský , the owner of sheep marketplace with the theft of millions of dollars’ worth of bitcoin . tomáš jiřikovský was arrested last year for his role in enabling drug trade over sheep marketplace .
dark net market sheep marketplace has shut down after $ 5 . 3m ( £3 . 3m ) in bitcoins was stolen from the site .
it is not the first time people are accused of stealing bitcoins from sheep marketplace . not too long ago , two men from florida were
sheep marketplace closed down over the weekend after someone got away with 96 , 000 bitcoins - and angry users are chasing him around the internet .
the sheep marketplace , like the silk road , was accessible via the tor network and let people buy drugs and other illegal items through its pages .
, but thought he could do branwen one better : he would provide evidence that sheep marketplace was created by tomáš jiřikovský , an accused bitcoin scammer .
sheep marketplace , one of the two most prominent silk road competitors , went down on saturday . a message briefly posted on the site on saturday claimed that one of sheep marketplace ' s vendors exploited a security flaw and stole 5 , 400 btc ( $ 6 million at its current value ) .
sheep marketplace has 14 categories of goods that users can browse . one of their biggest categories is drugs , which has upwards of 850 products available , like
sheep marketplace , one of the leading anonymous websites , after silk road ’s closure by u . s . prosecutors , allegedly selling drugs , has gone . . .
on the sheep marketplace subreddit , acknowledging that he / she was now convinced the sheep was a scam . the new theory : a couple of vendors had slashed drug prices like infomercial salesmen right around the time the site started experiencing technical difficulties .
users of online underground bazaar sheep marketplace are trying to figure out who got away with $ 5 million , $ 40 million , or even $ 100 million worth of bitcoins from the site — and whether it might be the owners themselves . yesterday , reddit user crazeefruito posted a message from the front page of sheep marketplace , which appeared to have been shut down .
another drug marketplace bit the dust over the weekend and another massive bitcoin heist shook the deep web .
this week the accused thieves from the infamous sheep marketplace have been indicted by prosecutors from the czech republic . the charged suspect thomas jiřikovský may face up to 18 years for firearms charges , theft , and drug trafficking . the sheep marketplace was a popular darknet market much like the silk road but only lasted a few months due to the operators ceasing operations in an alleged exit scam .
probly not a good time for sheep to answer that question . you know , just in case
however , according to reports from vendors the countdown timer was acting funny and wasn’t moving at an appropriate speed . the same case was with buyers as well who had deposited btc in their sheep marketplace accounts .
unfortunately sheep marketplace has been disbanded . the creator of the site has taken all of the bitcoins stored in the account wallets . feel free to discuss anything related to the fallout , including vendor contact information .
sheepmarketscam , and the site ' s forum is that the black market ' s creators were the thieves . sheep marketplace , for its part , isn’t doing much to help its cause or assuage its users .
if we didn ' t talk on here , you ' d still be moving funds into sheep .
when a black market calls itself
sheep ,
it ' s no surprise when someone gets fleeced . but the effects of a purported theft of thousands of bitcoins from the drug - selling site sheep marketplace have rippled across the dark web , and may lead to the shutdown of its biggest drug - selling site .
in march , sheep marketplace came on the scene ; its operators say they’ve signed up 5 , 000 members . the latest newcomer is buyitnow which , according to ormsby , is still a startup with just 10 listings .
bitcoin ' s
blockchain
ledger keeps track of every single transaction , so anyone can see what happens to the money . and the transactions are so large it ' s obvious that they involve sheep marketplace money .
considering the fbi puppeteered anonymous informant sabu , convincing jeremy hammond to dump the stratfor data onto the bureau’s servers , would it be very surprising if the feds commandeered sheep marketplace ? it ' s possible that , with information on jiřikovský , perhaps the fbi was able to track the sheep’s bitcoin transactions , and nab careless vendors .
some people in the bitcoin space may remember the sheep marketplace . this darknet forum started gaining a lot of momentum after silk road was shut down . unfortunately , sheep was shut down in march 2015 , and its founder was arrested at the same time . apparently , he also stole bitcoins worth several million belonging to platform users .
in the message posted to the site ' s opening page , the sheep marketplace ' s operator said it had shut down following the theft on 21 november of 5 , 400 bitcoins - £3 . 3m at current exchange rates .
branwen then criticized sheep marketplace’s official explanation for the clearnet mirror site , which was that “fans” had set up the fully - functioning mirror on cloned software many months before the deep web site started attracting the silk road exodus hordes .
sheep marketplace was smaller than silk road , and he had it running quite well . sr page changes used to time out 3 times out of 4 . but the fbi only got a single - day 29 , 000 bitcoin snapshot .
bitcoin fog was embroiled in a tor marketplace theft incident in 2013 - a user exploited a vulnerability in the anonymous marketplace called sheep marketplace and used this to steal bitcoins worth an estimated $ 6 million . as it transpired , the user tried to launder their bitcoins using the bitcoin fog service and distribute them elsewhere to avoid persecution . a similar incident occurred again in 2015 when around 7000 bitcoins were stole from a chinese digital currency exchange , and the coins were traced back to bitcoin fog .
he has 1 % of the world ' s bitcoin . he likes neat whole numbers . when tiny fractions suddenly appear , its obvious he ' s tumbling them . nearly all the pants in the washing machine are his , so sheep swag mixes with sheep swag , and comes out looking like . . . er , sheep swag .
details of the incident are still unclear . angry former users of the drug bazaar are pointing fingers in all directions , mainly on reddit , and mounting a cyber - manhunt operation to track down the robbers . many believe the heist was a scam , and the no . 1 suspect among redditors is the sheep marketplace administrator , a czech citizen named tomáš jiřikovský . rumors of suspicious behavior from sheep marketplace ' s administrators began in late november , as documented on the website urltoken .
the mysterious shutdown of sheep marketplace , which relies on vendor fees for funds , follows a tumultuous few weeks for the site and its vendors . beginning november 20 , or in the days following , large volume sheep vendors found that they were unable to withdraw their bitcoins . these vendors and other sheep users took their complaints to the site’s forum and reddit . sheep admins addressed these complaints by assuring users that the site was experiencing technical problems related to the update of an automatic tumbler used to disguise transactions . ( the site’s timeline of erratic behavior was arranged semi - coherently by the person or people behind urltoken , a site that is compiling the updates of multiple reddit and sheep forum threads . )
after silk road , another underground online marketplace ' utopia ' has been seized by dutch national police , where users coul . . .
. . . he has 1 % of the world ' s bitcoin . he likes neat whole numbers . when tiny fractions suddenly appear , its obvious he ' s tumbling them . nearly all the pants in the washing machine are his , so sheep swag mixes with sheep swag , and comes out looking like . . . er , sheep swag .
the closure of sheep has had repercussions elsewhere on the
dark net
. a site called black market reloaded stopped letting new users register on 1 december saying it could not handle the influx of users caused by the closure of sheep .
does this definitively prove jiřikovský’s involvement in sheep marketplace , let alone the bitcoin theft ? the information gleaned by branwen’s source seems pretty damning . the evidence could lead to vigilante justice by scorned buyers and sellers , by hackers , and by law enforcement . if bitcoin is to be made palatable for the masses , especially in the wake of the recent effusive praise on capitol hill , those invested in the cryptocurrency ' s future will want to bring the sheep marketplace thieves down , and prevent similar scams from happening again .
“this vendor found [ a ] bug in the system and stole 5 , 400 btc—your money , our provisions , all was stolen , ” the sheep marketplace ' s message read . “we were trying to resolve this problem , but we were not successful . ”
, is the hallmark of a virtual drug market scam . while all of this might smell like a smoking gun , determining if ebook101 was a rogue vendor or a dummy account behind a larger sheep marketplace scam could prove difficult given the anonymity of virtual black markets .
thomas jiřikovský from the infamous sheep marketplace has been indicted by prosecutors from the czech republic early this week . he has been charged with drug trafficking , theft , and firearms charges . according to the law , the suspect may face up to 18 years in jail .
the stakes are high : it ' s not simply that there is a large amount of stolen cash at stake . because sheep marketplace was a haven for criminals who do business , it ' s likely that some of the victims in this theft want the perpetrator dead .
bitcoin doesn’t fail to make it to the headlines every single day – either because of the exchange rate or some kind of hack – and today it is because of a sheep marketplace scam wherein scammers siphoning off over 39 , 000 bitcoins worth $ 40 million from its users .
yesterday , sheep marketplace , an anonymous digital narcotics bazaar that grew popular after the shutdown of the silk road , announced that it had been robbed of 5 , 400 bitcoins—the equivalent of $ 6 million at current exchange rates—and then promptly shut itself down . this came just days after
evolution - - the largest deep web drugs marketplace , disappeared suddenly overnight from the internet . but unlike silk road , there is n . . .
sheep is dead , as is this subreddit . for vendor information and latest market news , please check out / r / darknetmarkets .
before the incidence , the sheep marketplace issued warnings to vendors and buyers that they could not make a withdrawal . at that same time , the website moderators were offering bulk drug purchases to those who could pay first . they did this instead of keeping the money in an escrow account .
the 2013 theft led to the shuttering of sheep marketplace , which had sprung up in response to the closing of silk road , the first online drug marketplace to use bitcoin . at the time , news articles and reddit claimed the amount stolen was $ 100 million or $ 220 million and reddit vigilantes watched transactions out of an address they were convinced was associated with the theft , until they realized it was instead owned by a bitcoin exchange .
according to the information we have been able to gather so far [ through 1 , 2 , 3 ] , sheep marketplace system started acting a little funny wherein it stopped sellers from withdrawing their bitcoins . some vendors had amassed hundreds of bitcoins by selling goods through tens of thousands of transactions .
in early december , sheep marketplace , a site which used bitcoin and the anonymising browser tor to enable online sales of illicit goods , shut down . the site ' s administrator reported that a dealer had found a bug in the system which had been exploited to steal 5 , 400 bitcoins .
“we are sorry to say , but we were robbed on november 21 , 2013 , by vendor ebook101 , ” explained the sheep marketplace at the time . this vendor found bug [ sic ] in our system and stole 5400 btc – your money , our provisions , all was stolen . ”
being stolen by the operator of sheep were found to have accidentally tracked btc - e internal wallet movements , thus discrediting this alternative explanation .
many former dealers and customers who used the sheep marketplace took to social news site reddit to complain about the shutdown . many wondered why the site was left to run for a week after the theft was spotted . none of those posting reported that their bitcoins had been sent to their emergency address .
mackert opened his coinbase account on december 30 , 2013 , and then deposited 7 . 72 bitcoins into the account the next day . one special agent noted that 24 transactions earlier , those bitcoins had originated in one of the 14 wallets suspected in the sheep marketplace theft , receiving 200 bitcoins at that time .
while some hope to track down the people behind the theft , others wonder if the site ' s owners are starting a new scam . urltoken writes that sheep marketplace started linking a service called tormarket , which the author suspects is run by the same people . tormarket , however , has disavowed the site and asked its administrators to take down the link .
this is the worst pr we can get right now ,
its home page reads . for users who moved to sheep marketplace from silk road after its shutdown by law enforcement , this means another major bitcoin black market is gone , along with their money .
it said the theft was carried out by a vendor on sheep who exploited a bug in the site ' s software to steal the virtual cash .
the forfeiture agreement states that after the november heist , sheep marketplace notified users , “we are sorry to say , but we were robbed on november 21 , 2013 by vendor ebook101 . this vendor found bug [ sic ] in our system and stole 5400 btc - your money , our provisions , all was stolen . ”
the sheep marketplace is compared to the old infamous silk road market . due to the operators ceasing operations in an alleged exit scam , the darknet market only lasted for a few months before shutting down . the co - administrator of the silk road also faces a prison sentence , but for much more darknet successful reasons .
the actual theft is believed to be much higher than 5 , 400 bitcoins . according to reporters , some have pointed to addresses with transactions which sum up a little over 39 bitcoin . the amount in the sheep marketplace before it was shut down is believed to be an indication that the site owner absconded with the funds .
which raises a third interesting scenario that could explain the sheep marketplace mayhem . as the mysterious hacker who doxed jiřikovský told branwen , he passed the information to the fbi on november 2 . that means the fbi had an 18 - day head start on its investigation ( assuming it undertook one ) before the site started experiencing problems . that would be more than enough time for the fbi to reverse - engineer the sheep creator’s identity , as they had done with silk road’s ulbricht .
but users smelled a rat : they reckoned sheep had probably been holding far more than that amount , and had returned none of the excess to users .
as explained by the sheep marketplace at the time : “we are sorry to say , but we were robbed on november 21 , 2013 , by vendor ebook101 . ” they added that “this vendor found bug [ sic ] in our system and stole 5 , 400 btc – your money , our provisions , all was stolen . ”
writing on the marketplace ' s homepage , the administrators claimed that one of its vendors , ebook101 , had exploited a bug in the system that allowed them to pilfer the bitcoins .
the u . s . government has seized $ 4 . 5 million from two florida men who allegedly stole 5 , 400 bitcoins from illegal online drug sales site sheep marketplace in late 2013 , shortly before the price of bitcoin hit its peak of around $ 1 , 200 , according to forfeiture documents filed last week in jacksonville , florida .
i ' ve got a fair amount of experience getting bitcoin out of sheep and turning it into cash , as have all the other vendors contributing to this .
“the reason is probably that one vendor did use bug in marketplace and did steal 5500btc from sheep pocket . then the problems with withdrawals happened , there were no tumbler , we were all fooled : / we , the mods realized all facts just right now , we do hope that some of you can save btc after reading this” , noted the moderator .
the drama began in late november when the operators of sheep marketplace — which had risen to prominance after the fbi took down silk road , the previous large , anonymous hub for drug dealers — announced they were closing down because the site was hacked . the hacker fooled users into thinking their online bitcoin wallets were full when in fact they had been looted .
all this started around november 20 when vendors started posting their suspicion on the site’s forum as well as on reddit . they claimed that the withdrawal system wasn’t working and were not able to withdraw their earnings for straight 10 days . the admins of sheep marketplace implemented withdrawal countdown timer with a minimum of 1btc limit on day 9 of the withdrawal system being down .
at one point , at least , the internet detectives were on the right track . sheep marketplace really did shut down , and bitcoins were stolen . but rather than play a shell game to try and keep the money hidden , the thief appears to have done what any normal person would have : traded the digital currency for real money at the earliest opportunity .
in march of 2015 , thomas jiřikovský was arrested in the czech republic for allegedly stealing millions of dollars in bitcoin from the darknet market , sheep marketplace , which was located on the deep web in 2013 . the market is notorious for shutting down after a few months of operations due to a so - called vendor who stole $ 6 million worth of bitcoins .
the sheep marketplace was considered one of the biggest exit scams in the history of darknet markets as the operators were accused of stealing 40 , 000 bitcoins from customers . users had complained of suspended withdrawals one week prior to the $ 6 million dollar vendor theft incident and the website shut down for good immediately after the announcement , along with all the existing customer funds .
when it comes to sheep marketplace , the crowd is still working through the information . they think they ' ve found the former moderator of the site , who has given an interview to the czech republic ' s biggest newspaper in an attempt to clear his name , and behind the scenes some users are trying to see if there are any other loose ends in the block chain .
according to reports , thomas jiřikovský was arrested in march 2015 in the czech republic . he faces accusations of stealing millions of dollars in bitcoin from the sheep marketplace . the darknet market was located on the deep web in 2013 . a regional report released confirms that jiřikovský and his wife eve have been going through the trial process quickly . they are therefore expected to be sentenced in the near future .
they know sheep is closing and so they are reducing all prices , introducing new products , and making everyone [ finalize transactions early ] to try and take as much as they can ,
wrote the author . and the actual theft is thought to be much higher than 5 , 400 bitcoins . as noted by tapscape , andy greenberg of forbes , and others , some people have pointed to an address with transactions totaling a little over 39 bitcoins , supposedly the amount in sheep marketplace before it shut down , as an indication that the site ' s owners had absconded with the funds .
by november 27 , sheep marketplace claimed 90 percent of users were now able to withdraw bitcoins . this turned out not to be the case . two days later , admins announced that users would be able to withdraw 1 btc , but only after a 22 - hour countdown clock had expired . according to updates on sheepmarketscam , the clock appeared to be operating according to some wacky kind of einsteinian relativity . adding insult to injury , many vendors were unable to withdraw bitcoins after the 22 hours had elapsed . with bitcoin’s valuation skyrocketing following a positive reception in congress two weeks ago , this behavior looked suspicious to sheep users and observers .
by november 30 , sheep marketplace , feeling the heat of scam accusations , took their forum offline and posted the following message :
we are enabling a spam filter for the forums , as the number of posts had got out of control . we will be enabling the forum once this is in place . please try to stay calm . this is a temporary measure , and we will keep everybody updated when we have further information
.
yeah , thenodman started another thread when he found the trapdoor in sheep , and i wrote one called
ok . this is how we are going to catch him
, which we were using too .
‘i am a large vendor on sheep marketplace , or i was until recently . i sold hard drugs in reasonably large quantities . i have around $ 90k locked up in the site . i owe some money to some very nasty people , ‘i have until monday evening . they have already threatened me with death . i have no doubt that they have killed before . . . i am 26 and i don ' t want to die . ’
then came the shocker when one of the moderators replied to vendors’ concerns . according to ctrlaltweed , who is listed as a seller as well , revealed that users should leave the marketplace asap as admins that run away with all the money .
sheep marketplace gained prominence in the deep web after the downfall of silk road . however , unlike the latter , it wasn’t taken down by law enforcement , but by the owner himself who decided to run away with customers’ money . a detailed investigation into the incident is said to have revealed huge deposits into the bank accounts of tomáš jiřikovský’s family members . these deposits combined with his recent expenses worth over $ 800000 led to the identification and subsequent arrest .
balances being gone . most people suspected the owner of running off with the funds , and it turns out they were correct . south moravian police officials , who are investigating this darknet marketplace , were notified of one individual receiving suspicious bitcoin transactions .
this is the biggest heist of all time . is it in the newspapers ? no thenodmanout made the hardest spot - the escape route wallet from sheep . i assume he normally drives round in a van solving mysteries .
admins of the sheep marketplace then claimed ( the chronology here is fuzzy ) that they didn’t want to flood the bitcoin network with small transactions , another curious move given bitcoin’s booming business . the vendors who were able to withdraw , according to sheepmarketscam , had less than 1 btc in their accounts to begin with . the implication here being that many vendors with larger vaults of bitcoins were unable to withdraw , leaving the alleged scammers free to cherry pick the most fruitful accounts .
now , the sheep marketplace is considered as one of the biggest exit scams in the darknet market history . this is attributed to the fact that the operators were accused of stealing 40 , 000 bitcoin from their customers . there had been complaining from users over one week suspended withdrawals . these complaints are prior to the $ 6 , 000 , 000 vendor theft incident . the website shut down for good immediately after the announcement was made along with the existing fund of the customers .
former customers of sheep banded together , and discovered a bitcoin wallet holding 96 , 000 bitcoins which seemed to be linked to the thefts . at the exchange rate at the time , that was worth a little over $ 100m .
a reporter who followed the case wrote that “they know sheep is closing and so they are reducing all prices , introducing new products , and making everyone [ finalize transactions early ] to try and take as much as they can . ”
first , some background : i have never been to the sheep market website . i do not have an account there , i don ' t even know the url . i heard about it after the scam when it hit the news .
sheep marketplace , an anonymous online narcotics bazaar that received an influx of users after the shutdown of the popular drug - selling site silk road in october , went permanently offline over the weekend , claiming that it had been robbed of $ 6 million in bitcoins by one of its sellers who found a security vulnerability in the site . and black market reloaded , the leading online black market after silk road , has responded by announcing a plan to go offline - - perhaps only temporarily - - and has already cut off registrations to new users .
here is the wallet that i ' ve been chasing him with . note the balance . he still hasn ' t given me my bitcoin ! he ' s some kind of sucker for punishment . its cost him millions and uncovered the albion marketplace booty . the most expensive bitcoin in history .
sheep ' s administrators wrote on the site ' s homepage that it had experienced a theft of 5 , 400 bitcoins by one of its dealers known as ebook101 , close to $ 6 million at the cryptocurrency ' s current exchange rate .
this vendor found bug in system and stole 5400 btc - your money , our provisions , all was stolen ,
reads the message on sheep ' s homepage , which includes records of the stolen funds .
we were trying to resolve this problem , but we were not successful .
sheep ' s owners have used that theft to justify closing the market without returning the bitcoins stored in the market by users , despite claiming that they would redistribute those coins to users '
emergency addresses .
sheep users and other bitcoin followers on reddit say that the administrators began blocking withdrawals of bitcoins from the site more than a week ago , and may have absconded with as much as $ 44 million from the site ' s users , pointing to a movement of 39 , 900 bitcoins visible in the public record of bitcoin transactions known as the blockchain .
he ' s still stealing now . i ' ve been making fresh sheep pocket addresses and sending fractions of bitcoin in to see where they come back out onto the blockchain . he should have just pulled the plug rather than breaking the transaction fee payment and all that clever shit .
( when you or i tumble a few bitcoin , it does a better job because it takes somebody else ' s 2 bitcoins from last week and sends them through as ours . but sheep has too many to do that ) . listen to blockchain classics while you follow the money . urltoken
according to regional reports , jiřikovský and his wife eve who was allegedly sheep’s programmer have been going through the motions of trial and will likely be sentenced in the near future . “he faces 10 to 18 years in prison , ” said hynek olma , a spokesman for the regional prosecutor’s office .
after the abrupt closings of both sites , others launched in the wake of silk road ' s shutdown in october will stand as the leading websites for buying drugs and other illegal goods online : silk road 2 . 0 , which was launched less than a month ago , and the lesser - known pandora marketplace , deep bay and budster .
sheep marketplace and black market reloaded are only the latest to succumb to a widening crisis in the dark web drug industry . in late september , a fast - growing competitor market known as atlantis went suddenly offline , citing
security
reasons . a week later , the silk road was seized by federal agencies and its alleged owner ross ulbricht arrested in a san francisco library . in late october the fbi seized 144 , 000 bitcoins allegedly belonging to ulbricht - - more than $ 150 million at current exchange rates . then the administrator of a third market known as project black flag closed the site , openly admitting that he had panicked and stolen users ' bitcoins .
assuming the sheep was behind the scam , it would seem that deep web and bitcoin anonymity might have guaranteed a perfect digital heist . but , the site ' s founders may have left virtual cookie crumbs leading back to their identity . as silk road ' s dread pirate roberts so perfectly illustrated in his downfall ,
writing on forbes , tech reporter andy greenberg said the closure of sheep was only the latest event in a
widening crisis
that was hitting drug sellers operating via the dark net . he cited the example of two other sites , atlantis and project black flag that had shut down following the fbi seizure of the silk road .
making money in digital back alleys isn ' t hard , if you know what you ' re doing . among the many revelations to emerge from the silk road ' s implosion was that ulbricht made a great deal of money on bitcoin transaction fees—millions , in fact . this model of direct user fees helps to eliminate users ' fear that any particular marketplace is running a scam .
1 of those ninety six fucking thousand stolen bitcoins that i just chased after for 20 hours belongs to me , and the big sheep should have just given it to me when i asked him for it . i sold my car for it , thats why i ' m so fast . i have to walk everywhere , and i want it back .
poachers make the best gamekeepers
, and customers only really put bitcoin in to sheep . they ' ve . . . er , we ' ve never had to get it out and turn it to cash like the sheep rustler , you cant just put it in the bank or buy a loaf of bread with it . i imagine ( cough ) . this is just a nod of recognition to all you guys who are anticipating what this guy is about to do next . lets retain our anonymity , aaaiit ? you know what i ' m talking about . you won ' t be getting any community awards for this , and if you did , you won ' t turn up to collect it .
urltoken i posted this issue on r / bitcoin that night . we thought it was then transferred to a btc - e cold wallet when i posted about this a few days ago . . . but surprise surprise , it was actually posted to the sheep market scammer ' s . he just hadn ' t been caught yet . look who it was actually transferred to :
if bitcoinfog is in on it , then all they must do is to tumble their coins of theft once or twice more and close bitcoinfog and make several millions of cleanly laundered dollars . or even continue to operate the fog as a quasi - legitimate business to avoid arousing the suspicion that closing the fog would bring upon them . thieves would never even have to withdraw the illgotten gains from sheep to become rich in the utmost sense
under this theory , if ctrlaltweed and premiumgoods could convince buyers to purchase both existing and new drugs at deep discount , they could flood their accounts with bitcoins . that would leave the site ' s creators or hackers—either of which theoretically could have created the above vendors as dummy accounts—free to potentially run with the money . ( it’s worth noting that ctrlaltweed was a well - known and respected silk road vendor before jumping ship to the sheep . )
one day later , sheep users , working off of numbers from the bitcoin monitoring site blockchain , posted on reddit that 39 , 918 btc ( $ 40 million ) simply disappeared into the digital ether—making ebook101’s alleged 5 , 400 ( $ 6 million ) heist look like chump change . this mysterious exodus of 39 , 918 btc seems to have occurred only after administrators blocked users from withdrawing their bitcoins from the site . this move , according to a
i ' m not sure fog would ' ve worked anyway . the other name for a tumbler is a mix , as in , your coins get mixed with other people ' s coins . . . but who on earth would be handing fog 96k btc which could be mixed with sheep ' s 96k ? if you want to delink yourself from the original batch of 96k , you need to pull 96k from somewhere else ! easier said than done .
this vendor is believed to be someone named ebook101 . an official statement from marketplace reads , “we are sorry to say , but we were robbed on saturday 11 / 21 / 2013 by vendor ebook101 . this vendor found bug in system and stole 5400 btc – your money , our provisions , all was stolen . we were trying to resolve this problem , but we were not successful . we are sorry for your problems and inconvenience , all of current btc will be ditributed to users , who have filled correct btc emergency adress . ”
i had a sheep withdrawal with no transactions next to it for 3 whole days , to try to balance his books . so i ' ve had a good fortnight to wait for my car to be stolen . when he said i can only drive it in 25 hours , once a day , if the tank is full , we all knew this was bullshit , right ? send me my public and private wallet keys in an email if your wallets only work one - way .
, claiming czech vendors were also involved in the site ' s administration ; namely , ctrlaltweed and premiumgoods , who are apparently friends . “these 2 vendors have dropped their prices like crazy on all products , ” added throwme1121 . “in addition , they have added new products like cocaine and mdma that they have never stocked before , and they are using stock images not their own . and you guessed it—fe [ ' finalize your transactions early ' ] on everything because of sheep withdrawal issues . ”
black market reloaded is probably silk road ' s biggest competitor , with 8 , 551 public listings . its operators claim to have booked $ 400 , 000 in revenue last month . black market reloaded took off in august of 2012 , after silk road stopped selling guns and shut down its offshoot , the armory . since then , black market reloaded has become the go - to market for people with
no moral restrictions at all .
the fast - growing russian anonymous marketplace , or ramp , is another serious contender for market share in the burgeoning digital underground .
i was still sending fractions of bitcoin into sheep , looking for the puncture , and saw that thenodman had already sussed it . i clicked the link to the wallet and stood open - mouthed to see a planet - sized spaceship hovering above europe . we were both pretty knackered i think , but every door led to another door , rooms full of bitcoins stacked from floor to ceiling . i was ready to call it a day , but the spaceship started to dissappear into a fog before my eyes !
defcon , an administrator at underground marketplace silk road 2 ( not to be confused with silk road ) , noticed that funds held for the escrow service were stolen in february 2014 . transaction malleability , an issue with the bitcoin protocol at the time that also affected some other services , was blamed for the theft . [ 87 ] others note that transaction malleability is unlikely to result in coins being stolen and belive the silk road 2 incident to be an inside job . several months after the incident , it was reported that silk road 2 is paying users back with funds earned from commissions [ 89 ]
in this anonymous free - market matrix , there is no legal recourse for the scammed . every user is anonymous and making transactions in anonymous currency . that makes it harder for law enforcement to bring their digital surveillance tools to bear on the drug war , but it also makes it harder to establish human trust on the deep web . amidst the meteoric rise of bitcoin , and the promise of the security and anonymity that comes with cryptographic currencies , the people of virtual black markets—especially ones named
sheep
—have forgotten the age - old maxim that a fool and his money are soon parted .
sheep is down we are sorry to say , but we were robbed on saturday 11 / 21 / 2013 by vendor ebook101 . this vendor found bug in system and stole 5400 btc - your money , our provisions , all was stolen . we were trying to resolve this problem , but we were not successful . we are sorry for your problems and inconvenience , all of current btc will be ditributed to users , who have filled correct btc emergency adress [ sic ] . i would like to thank to all sheepmarketplace moderators by this , who were helping with this problem . i am very sorry for this situation . thank you all .
you can see my wallet ! its the first one to send 0 . 00666 - starting
1ahyn
. my phone buzzes when it receives bitcoin , and i need sleep . you can all look in it , and see that i ' ve been chasing down a £150m thief with 0 . 7 bitcoins , because he took my bitcoin ! the whole of my day is there - firing airgun pellets into new sheep wallets , lots of 666 ' s , my 0 . 5 btc deposit to climb into the tumbler with thousands of stolen bitcoins , then it coming back to the same wallet in chunks after being tumbled . its now more tainted than before it went in !
tumblers are worth it , but you have to trust them because your bitcoins might not tinkle out of the other side . i don ' t trust bitcoin fog because they didn ' t answer my legitimate questions . if i find that the sheep swag was tumbling when it was supposedly broken on nov 26th , i am personally going to put them out of business . and they said
no fees for the rest of the year
, but i didn ' t get all of my 0 . 500 btc back . some of it was chipped away as soon as it arrived at the deposit address . obviously , a % of 96 , 000 bitcoins - twice - isn ' t enough christmas spending money for them . and not answering support tickets is rude . i can ' t abide ill manners .
the forbes e - book on bitcoin secret money : living on bitcoin in the real world , by forbes staff writer kashmir hill , can be bought in bitcoin or legal tender .
black market reloaded , the current largest anonymous market for contraband online with nearly 7 , 000 product listings , responded saturday with a message on its forum for users saying that black market reloaded wouldn ' t be able to handle the influx of new customers and sellers , arguing that the tor anonymity software that hides the identity of the site ' s users and owners isn ' t designed for such a large user base . on sunday he followed up by blocking new registrations , closing inactive accounts and notifying users that the site would go offline in around two days .
this puts bmr in the edge of the blade , tor can ' t support any site to be too big ,
wrote the bmr administrator who calls himself backopy .
[ black market reloaded ] can ' t hold another wave of refugees . . . . without competition the wisest thing to do is to shut down the market , doing it in a timely and orderly manner .
whether that shutdown will be permanent still isn ' t clear . one administrator on the site ' s forums writes that it ' s merely working on a new version of the site and is taking the current site offline to focus on building it , with plans to launch in early 2014 .
we will be back up . but to speed up we need to close shop ,
writes the administrator named lecontog .
don ' t worry , we don ' t rip [ off ] anyone and will be back stronger than ever .
backopy himself wrote on the forums that he wouldn ' t yet comment on the timing of the site ' s reopening .
there are those who claim that this blockchain refers to the scammed bitcoin , while there are others who claim that the this blockchain refers to the actual amount .
ravi is the editor of techienews . he is a technology enthusiast with keen interest in information security . ravi has over 6 years of experience and has been actively involved in editorial groups of many us and uk based news portals .
after announcing pokémon sun and moon at e3 2016 , nintendo has revealed more details about it . shigeru ohmori and junichi masuda , the director and producer . . .
the european union proposed today that they want to cut the wholesale roaming rates which telecom operators pay to each other when their customers . . .
type 2 diabetes , usually seen in adults , has started affecting a large number of children in the uk .
scientists have discovered an 8cm space rock that is chemically different from any of the 50 , 000 kinds of meteorites that have been held in collections by researchers .
ios 10 was revealed grandly at wwdc 2016 ( worldwide developers conference ) , which is the company’s annual event . though the software update is slated to . . .
i just chased him through a bitcoin tumbler , and when he came out with 96 , 000 btc , i was waiting for him . . . : sheepmarketplace
press j to jump to the feed . press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts
i just chased him through a bitcoin tumbler , and when he came out with 96 , 000 btc , i was waiting for him . . .
i ' ve been a very busy boy . all day , we ' ve been chasing the scoundrel with our stolen bitcoins through the blockchain . around lunchtime ( uk ) , i was chasing him across the roof of a moving train , ( metaphorically ) . i was less than 20 minutes , or 2 blockchain confirmations , behind
tomas
.
he was desperately creating new wallet addresses and moving his 49 retirement wallets through them , but having to wait for 3 or 4 confirmations each time before moving them again . each time i caught up , i
666
ed him - sent 0 . 00666 bitcoins to mess up his lovely round numbers like 4 , 000 . then , all of a sudden , decimal places started appearing , and fractions of bitcoins were jumping from wallet to wallet like grasshoppers on a hotplate without stopping for confirmations .
he was tumbling our stolen bitcoins a second time , and a tumbler is unbeatable . . . .
unless you guess which one it is , nearly all the coins belong to the person you ' re tracking , jump in with him , and get jumbled up through the same wallets using the same algorithm . i was hopping from foot to foot shouting
come on !
at my laptop , waiting an age for 6 blockchain confirmations to get 0 . 5 btc into
bitcoin fog
. my half a bitcoin got sliced and diced through loads of wallets and i followed the biggest chunk with urltoken - along with 96 , 000 stolen ones !
i chose the shortest tumbling time - 6 hours - and my half a coin plinked back onto my android phone in dribs and drabs , sparkly and new .
i think he ' s asleep now in the czech republic . when he awakes , he will see my
666
next to his 96 , 000 stolen , freshly - laundered bitcoins . along with lots of insults attached to fragments of bitcoins that i hope you are about to send here : -
now i ' ve got to sleep . i ' ve just chased a thief through a washing machine for you
* * * * edit 04 / 12 / 2013 the cash has moved continually for days , and i ' ve been chasing it , pulling my trousers down , and depositing 0 . 000666 into each cash pile above about a million dollars i ' ve found , any empty accounts that i think were important hubs , and a couple of 10 bitcoin
spending money
wallets he uses .
click the filter to select payments , then you only see my red arrows . follow the ones that end in 666 . you will find yourself standing in a cavernous wallet next to millions of dollars , with doors leading to others . * * * * 17 : 20gmt , weds 4th dec . he ' s siphoning it all through here : - urltoken
its the input trough of a tumbler . if you follow the largest chunk , you catch up to
zero confirmations
eventually , but its not him . its a mincer / washing machine . if you do it at night , there is a recombined cash pot at the end of the rainbow . or you can follow a chunk until it starts to get smaller quickly . then do
taint analysis
and select
reverse taint
. you are halfway through the tumbler , and
reverse taint
can see the output pots where the money has stopped moving .


bogatyr komir ( russian богатырь комир ; kazakh богатырь көмір ; english bogatyr coal ) is the largest coal mining group in kazakhstan .

with a production of 42 million tonnes of coal in 2008 , it had a share of circa 40 % of the country 's coal output ( totalling 105 million tons in 2008 ) .

the company mines the " bogatyr mine " near the city of ekibastuz in pavlodar province of kazakhstan .

with an output of 56.8 million tonnes of coal in 1985 , the bogatyr mine entered the guinness book of world records for being the world 's largest single coal mine .

since then this level of production was not sustained , and in 2007 the production of the mine was 40 million tons of coal .

together with the neighbouring severnyi mine , the oldest mine in the ekibastuz coal basin , they hold reserves estimated at 4.5 billion ton of coal , which at the current production rate give them a residual lifetime of over 100 years .

bogatyr access komir

in march 2009 , “bogatyr access komir” was renamed to
bogatyr coal
llp .
the annual allocations for environmental actions by bogatyr access komir total 120 - 150 million tenge .
rail transportation of coal by bogatyr access komir accounts for more than 20 % of gross rail traffic in kazakhstan .
the history of bogatyr access komir began in september 1996 , when access industries won in the government bids for privatisation of the bogatyr and stepnoy coal opencast mines ( 70 % ) .
solving these and other problems will allow bogatyr access komir to enhance its competitiveness and to secure a sustained demand for coal .
all of these provide a high competitive edge and a stable market for the power - generating coal produced by bogatyr access komir .
regular financial aid to its employees by bogatyr access komir includes loans for children’s education and buying flats / houses or other expensive items .
the history of bogatyr access komir can be traced back to september 1996 , when access industries inc . privatized the property of the bogatyr and stepnoy ( 70 % ) open - cast coal mines through an open tender held under a government order . three years later , the severny open - cast coal mine was transferred into trust management by the company as a result of negotiations between bogatyr access komir and russia’s rao ues .
kazakhstan’s largest coal producer , bogatyr access komir , which accounts for roughly 35 percent of kazakhstan’s coal output , is a subsidiary of access industries incorporated ( u . s . a . ) . bogatyr access komir develops northern kazakhstan’s bogatyr and severny coal fields and is kazakhstan’s largest exporter to russia . russian firms are also stake holders in kazakhstan coal industry and roughly 16 mmst are transited annually from kazakhstan northward via rail to power plants in southern russia .
according to shareholders’ agreement , from 2009
bogatyr access komir
was transferred to the management of the joint venture of kazakhstani
samruk - energy
jsc and russian rusal .
bogatyr access komir is looking to the future with confidence and planning its strategy in the hope that its activities represent a sound contribution to the progress and welfare of independent kazakhstan .
today , bogatyr access komir is a successful coal producer . since its inception , the company has produced 164 million tonnes of coal , and its stripping operations totalled 118 million cubic metres .
in march of 2009 bogatyr access komyr , llp was renamed into bogatyr coal , llp . viktor konstantinovich shchukin was appointed to the position of general director of bogatyr coal llp .
bogatyr access komir adheres strictly to kazakh environmental laws . atmospheric emission and external dumping of overburden by the company are subject to a licence issued by the kazakh ministry of natural resources and environmental protection .
the company strives to improve the environmental situation in the ekibastuz coal basin . bogatyr access komir’s experts have upgraded the technology used in piling coaly rocks in slag - heaps , and isolate them in order to prevent spontaneous combustion .
under a five - year agreement with the government of the pavlodar region , which was concluded in autumn 2002 , access industries and bogatyr access komir undertook to implement a number of large projects in the region aimed at improving social security , attracting investment into the local economy , and developing education , culture , health , public services , etc .
the bogatyr access komir company is the largest domestic coal producing enterprise , and occupies a dominating position in the market for fuel consumed by the country’s power stations . 12 kazakhstani and nine russian power stations operate using the coal that the company produces .
bogatyr access komir , a venture based on the ekibastuz coal basin , is the largest coal company in kazakhstan and the principal supplier of coal to domestic power stations . twelve power plants in kazakhstan and nine in russia rely on the company’s supplies .
bogatyr access komir ( bak ) is the largest coal mining group in kazakhstan . with a production of 42 million tonnes of coal in 2008 , it had a share of circa 40 % of the countrys coal output ( totalling 105 million tons in 2008 ) .
the development of the coal basin is closely associated with the city of ekibastuz which celebrated its 45th anniversary in june 2002 . the presence of companies such as bogatyr access komir is what makes the city truly a modern industrial and power generating centre for north kazakhstan .
a highly professional management team at bogatyr access komir , appointed by access industries , pursued an anti - recession policy and secured the financial stability of the coal company . the professional skills of the personnel , adoption of western management standards , efficient financial control and budgeting , and sustained production and supply of coal all contributed to cost - cutting and an increase in revenues .
bogatyr access komir provides financial assistance for its employees . educational loans , house purchase loans , and loans to purchase consumer durables are available . the amount of material aid and social payments from the wage fund comprised 241m tenge in ekibastuz over the first half of 2001 .
the remuneration system includes various benefits and guarantees . the average salary exceeds 30 , 000 tenge ; in addition , each employee receives a monthly board allowance and an allowance for paying communal charges . bogatyr access komir allocates about 18 million tenge per month for these policies .
celebrating the tenth anniversary of kazakhstan’s independence , the management and staff of the bogatyr access komir coal - producing company are happy to share the results of the past five years’ performance with the readers of invest kazakhstan and tell them about their short - term plans and prospects .
three years later , bogatyr access komir made an agreement with ees rossiyi under which the former accepted the severny coal opencast mine for trust management . at present , the company comprises the bogatyr and severny opencast coal mines , the bogatyrskoye and severnoye loading / transportation departments , a plant for overhauling mining and transport equipment and a track machine station .
in november 1999 , severny was handed into trust management by bogatyr access komir . a new page in its history was thus opened . between 27th november 1999 and 1st september 2001 , 22m tonnes of coal were produced in the severny mine , and 25m cu m of rock was transported to slag - heaps .
workplace safety is an area of special concern for bogatyr access komir . the company has achieved a 47 % reduction in work - related injuries . there are eight medical centres operating at the company’s sites . regular medical examinations and vaccination are provided free , and the company pays 75 % of the cost of special treatment for employees at resorts and rest homes ( including one - way tickets ) . the berezka rest home and karlygash children’s recreational camp , situated in the picturesque surroundings of the bayan aul national park , are financed by bogatyr access komir . stays at these recreational facilities are free for children of the company’s employees .
the new stage of field development began in the mid - nineties of the last century when new investors came here . history of “bogatyr access komir
llp begins from september 1996 . at that time , “assess industries inc” privatized the property of “bogatyr” and “stepnoy” open - pit mines ( 70 % ) following the results of open tender conducted in accordance with government’s resolution .
by the agreement of the shareholders beginning with 2009 bogatyr access komyr , llp started being managed by two companies , the kazakhstani state holding samruk - kazyna and the russian uc rusal .
bogatyr access komir regularly provides charity and sponsor assistance . over 1 . 1bn tenge has been spent for this purpose . the company has provided backing for the culture support fund in pavlodar and the irtysh sport club , given aid to blagoveschensk cathedral , and provided assistance for the construction of a mosque in pavlodar , amongst others .
the potential of the company’s personnel is viewed as essential to its successful operation . not surprisingly , the tripartite commission for social partnership in the coal industry comprising representatives of the kazakh ministry of energy and mineral resources , employers and trade unions , have assessed the personnel policy of bogatyr access komir as the best in kazakhstan’s coal sector .
november 6 , 1996 - access industries ( eurasia ) , llp became the new owner of bogatyr coal mine . bogatyr access komyr limited liability partnership was created on the basis of the property complex of bogatyr coal mine . two mining complexes - bogatyr ( mining sections # # 5 , 6 , 9 , and 10 ) with the capacity of 40 million tons of coal per year and severny ( mining sections # # 1 , 2 , 3 , and 4 ) with the capacity of 8 million tons of coal per year function within the united bogatyr coal mine .
the new phase of the deposit development began in the middle of the 90 - th years of last century , when the new investors came there . the history of bogatyr access komyr , llp began in september 1996 . at that time , according to the results of the open tender conducted in compliance with the resolution of the rok government , access industries inc . company privatized the property of bogatyr mine and stepnoy mine ( 70 % ) .
the export of coal from ekibastuz has declined considerably over recent years . this trend continued into 2002 , and during the first nine months , shipments by bogatyr access komir dropped by 5 million tonnes . the main reason is high transport costs which make the final price unaffordable for russian power plants . the imposition of international transit rates by russia rendered ekibastuz coal largely non - competitive in that country .
the company has established its own staff training system . various vocational colleges and higher education institutions receive information about the professions demanded at bogatyr access komir . a corporate training base has been created . the training point has a license for educating specialists in 156 professions , and up to 3 , 500 persons study there each year . there is also a provision stipulating the encouragement of talented university graduates . they have their travel costs and accommodation paid during their internship . after the latter is over , the best ones are hired and receive apartments paid for by the company . in 2001 , 159 persons from the company were studying at higher educational institutions and colleges . the average wage at bogatyr access komir makes up 29 , 000 tenge . it has been increased three times over the past five years .
six years have passed since our company mined its first tonne of coal . then , in 1996 , there was little public confidence that , despite the diminishing demand for coal , tough competition from other producers , and a lack of solvent customer base , our business would not only survive but even lead the coal industry in kazakhstan . today bogatyr access komir is continuing in the renowned traditions of the ekibastuz coal - miners , and is eager to achieve new victories .
bogatyr access komir has independently developed a system of staff training . the company regularly informs vocational schools , colleges and universities of its staff requirements . in addition , the company has its own educational capacity , and its training centre is licensed to provide training in 156 specialities . the centre has an annual attendance of up to 3 , 500 students . there is a policy in place of attracting talented university graduates , who are provided with free tickets , accommodation and living expenses during their traineeship with the company ; selected trainees are offered permanent positions and housing .
currently , the design capacity of “bogatyr coal
llp mines is 42 million tons of coal per year ( bogatyr cut - 32 million tons , severnyi cut - 10 million tons ) .
october 1977 года – at bogatyr coal mine the first rotary complex ershrd - 5000 was commissioned .
today the enterprise comprises the bogatyr and severny open - cast mines , the bogatyr and severnoye loading and hauling departments , a plant for repairing mining transport equipment , and a track machine station .
in addition , the lack of empty wagons , especially in summer , has an adverse impact on the regularity of supplies . this lack was especially pronounced following disputes with the russian ministry of railways over kazakh loop routes . the financial state of russian power plants does not allow them to pay in advance for their planned supplies , or for the quantity offered by bogatyr access komir to make up for incomplete deliveries in summer . as a result , the preparation of the power plants for the heating season is threatened every year and exports do not match the actual demand by russian consumers .
one of the company’s priorities lies in improving its occupational safety . as a result of measures taken by the company , occupational injuries have been cut by 47 % . eight health stations are in operation at the company . the company pays for regular medical examinations for its employees , and ensures that inoculations and other special treatment is available to them . the employer also pays for 75 % of the cost of tickets to spas and resorts ( plus one - way travel costs ) . bogatyr access komir maintains the karlygash recreation camp for the children of employees and the berezka spa , located in the picturesque vicinity of the bayan aul national wildlife reserve . children’s tickets are also fully paid by the company .
1966 – the construction of bogatyr coal mine started ( the initial name – irtyshskiy mine # 5 / 6 ) .
december 1983 – bogatyr coal mine achieved its designed capacity ahead of schedule – 50 million tons of coal per year .
bogatyr coal llp continues the renewal of the technical fleet . this time ten more dump cars were purchased by the company .
the veterans - miners returned from astana , where they had participated in the excursion organized with the financial support of bogatyr coal llp .
bogatyr coal supplies coal on market conditions to generating facilities of the group and third parties located both in kazakhstan and in russia . bogatyr coal mines are located in 35 km from ekibastuz gres - 1 and 53 km from ekibastuz gres - 2 ( the distance by railroad ) , which helps the group to minimize coal transportation costs . most of the coal - fired power plants in kazakhstan use coal produced by bogatyr coal .
november 30 , 1970 – the first phase of bogatyr coal mine was commissioned . the date is considered to be the birthday of the mine .
bogatyr access komir ( bak ) , the largest kazakh coal mining company , is planning to complete the modernization of its mining and stripping operations and secure supplies of blended coal to all our consumers by 2015 . we began the changeover to this technology , which is new to us , two years ago . a long - term program has been devised and we plan to implement it in three phases . in particular , the main technical development of phase one ( 2001 - 2005 ) will be to reconstruct the conveyor and rail system at the bogatyr opencast mine to an annual capacity of 14 million tons of blended coal . blending at the facility is carried out by simultaneous loading of coal onto a conveyer by two rotary excavators with different preset speeds . the two coal flows mix and blending is achieved as the conveyor unloads onto railway cars at the loading station . this method allows the fluctuation in ash content from car to car to be reduced by 2 - 2 . 5 times , so that the maximum deviation does not exceed 3 - 5 % of the average .
beginning from 2006 bogatyr coal llp has been implementing the planned conversion to the truck and conveyor technology of coal transportation with its blending directly in the pit .
august 12 , 2004 - the coal and overburden loading complex with the productivity of 14 million tons of coal per year was commissioned at bogatyr coal mine .
november 27 , 2015 - 1 , 5 billionth ton of coal was mined and shipped to customers ( counting from the commissioning of bogatyr coal mine ) .
january 1992 – at bogatyr coal mine the industrial tests of the conveyor started . loading coal onto the conveyor was carried out by ershrd - 5000 bucket - wheel excavator .
july 15 , 1971 - by order of ministry of coal industry of the union of soviet socialist republics the irtyshskiy mine # 5 / 6 was renamed into bogatyr coal mine .
july 1998 – the start - up of the world first inter - bench conveyor gantry sbf - r ( k ) - 1800 . 25 took place at bogatyr coal mine .
in 1996 - 2002 the company’s costs totalled 23 . 935 billion tenge under an investment programme undertaken following the purchase of the bogatyr and stepnoy opencast mines ( including auxiliaries ) .
the team called activated carbon from bogatyr coal llp made the debut in the republican competition of kvn teams organized by jsc samruk - energy having performed on a solid
four
.
december 1979 года – at bogatyr coal mine the ninth phase was commissioned . its production capacity achieved 50 million tons of coal per year , by size it became the world largest coal mine .
bogatyr coal
llp is the largest , rapidly developing open - pit coal mining company in kazakhstan . the company accounts for 70 % of total volume of coal mined in ekibastuz coal basin .
currently kvn panel games participants from bogatyr coal llp are going to the capital where they will take part in the republican kvn competition in support of the kazakh language development organized by samruk - energy jsc .
the strategy of bogatyr coal llp development is to provide the continuous coal production for a long perspective . under the current capacity of the enterprise the coal reserves will be enough for over 70 years of work .
from 1996 to 2001 , the company’s expenses within the investment programme for the purchase of the assets of the bogatyr and stepnoy open - cast mines and auxiliary subdivisions came to 19 , 597 . 2m tenge .
maintaining the output of the bogatyr and severny open - cast coal mines at the level of 48m tonnes per year and neutralizing the influence of degenerating technical mining factors on the face value and price for coal .
bogatyr coal llp mines coal of ksn - grade with the average combustion value of 4 , 000 kcal / kg , its ash content is about 42 % , and the moisture content does not exceed 5 % .
currently 60 % of all the coal mined in ekibastuz coal basin and 40 % of the total volume of coal production in the republic of kazakhstan fall on the share of bogatyr coal llp . bogatyr coal llp is one of the world largest enterprises on opencast coal mining ; its balance reserves are 2 , 75 billion tons . the production capacity of the enterprise is 42 million tons of coal , including 32 million on bogatyr coal mine and 10 million tons on severny coal mine . the total labor force of bogatyr coal llp is 6 , 257 people . the coal mining and shipment at the mine is carried out by excavators of various models – bucket - wheel excavators , shovels of ekg - model , hydraulic excavators manufactured by liebherr , caterpillar , komatsu , and belaz large trucks . the process also includes the conveyor lines and reloaders manufactured by the german company takraf .
september 9 , 2005 - severny complex of bogatyr coal mine was transferred to the new - truck and rail road technology of coal mining and blending . the complex productivity is 8 million tons of blended coal per year .
bogatyr mine with the designed capacity of 50 mm tons of coal p . a . was constructed in nine phases since 1965 till 1979 . in 1985 , the maximum annual productivity came to 56 , 8 mm tons of coal . the mine of such unit capacity was constructed for the first time in the world , and that is why , it was listed into the guinness book . until 1996 , bogatyr mine belonged to the state jsc ekibastuzkomir .
one of the most significant events in the history of the company was the production of 1 , 5 - billionth tons of coal , which was synchronized with the 45 - th jubilee of bogatyr coal mine celebrated in november 2015 .
the construction of the bogatyr open - cast mine began in 1966 , and was completed by 1979 . its design capacity is 52m tonnes of coal per year . it is the world’s largest open - cast coalmine in terms of output . in 1985 , production reached a record - high level at the mine : 56 . 8m tonnes . this result remains to be outdone . in november 1997 , the billionth tonne of coal was produced at the bogatyr coalmine .
taking into account the general state of rolling - stock in kazakhstan , the company also plans to organize quality depot facilities and major repairs at existing and new kazakh bases in co - operation with the largest russian rolling - stock manufacturers . a long - term agreement on strategic co - operation has already been made between the u . s . access industries , owner of bak , and the russian altaivagon . this document envisages building about 500 new open - box cars annually in the next three years , organizing major repairs , and other projects .
the favorable geological bedding of the coal seams in the boundaries of bogatyr and severny coal mine sections allows mining coal with least operational costs . the average stripping ratio does not exceed 0 , 7 cubic meters per 1 ton of coal .
november 2016 – assembly and commissioning for industrial operations of two new large trucks of belaz - 75131 model with the cargo capacity of 130 tons , within the frames of the main mining and transportation equipment renewal program adopted in bogatyr coal llp .
“bogatyr” open - pit mine , the design capacity of which is 50 mln . tons of coal per year was built in nine stages from 1965 to 1979 . maximum annual output was reached in 1985 – 56 , 8 mln . tons of coal . a mine with such unit output was built for the first time in the world and it was recorded in the guinness book of records in terms of this indicator .
bogatyr
open - pit mine was a part of “ekibastuzkomir” sjsc until november 1996 .
2006 - at bogatyr coal mine the truck and railroad technology of coal mining was introduced with the use of shovel excavators and large trucks , which is the main technology of coal mining at bogatyr coal mine currently . coal blending is organized at the coal stockpiles created in the pit with the use of powerful bulldozers for blending ; for loading coal from blending stockpiles they use bucket - wheel excavators as crushing and loading machines . the technology allows improving the quality of coal shipped by reduction of coal ash content fluctuations in a rail car .
november 6 , 1997 - one billionth ton of coal mined from the commissioning of bogatyr coal mine was mined and shipped to customers on that day . the picked crew headed by senior operator a . gusev was entrusted with the honor to mine and ship that jubilee ton .
bak plans to produce over 30 million tons of coal in 2003 as compared with 28 . 6 million tons last year . of this figure , 13 million tons will be supplied to kazakh consumers and the remaining 17 million tons to russia . in order to optimize coal supplies to russian power plants , bak founded a subsidiary , bogatyr trans in late 2002 ; this was initially orientated towards coal shipment from the bogatyr opencast mine using its own fleet of railway cars . this summer bogatyr trans commenced delivery to russia . currently coal is only being supplied to the zolotaya sopka station over two routes using the company’s cars . in the near future a contract will be signed with the russian sverdlovenergo for coal supplies using bogatyr trans cars . the company is striving to make the maximum possible use of its own transport capacity . nine months ago its rolling - stock comprised 70 open - box cars , but today the number has increased 13 times to 920 units . an average of 90 % of the rolling - stock ( which is expected to increase to 1000 units in a few months ) will be employed on the russian routes by the end of this year . the overall cost of the project to set up this transport company was over $ 25 million . the current plans of bogatyr trans include building up a fleet of 6 , 000 open - box cars and implementing high - quality maintenance .
on november 26 , 1972 – the meeting of the mine workers devoted to the presentation to bogatyr coal mine collective of the memorial red banner of the central committee of the communist party of kazakhstan , presidium of the supreme soviet of the kazakh soviet socialist republic , cabinet council of the kazakh soviet socialist republic , and the council of professional unions of kazakhstan .
beginning from october 2017 murat kenesovich abdygulov is general director of bogatyr coal llp . in the partnership the active reforms are going on aimed at the increase of the operations efficiency , achievement of a new quality level in the economic activity . the results of bogatyr coal llp in 2016 show demonstrably that despite all crisis events in the world economy and unfavorable market conjuncture the enterprise fulfilled the tasks set . it managed to preserve the sustainable results of operations and sales having sold 35 , 1 million tons of coal , what is 3 , 4 % higher that the level of 2015 . the company managed to maintain the gained positions of the most reliable and proven supplier of products for the power systems of kazakhstan and the russian federation .
at present , class ii coal supply minimization and blending are only carried out at surface blending and loading stores , following the example of the neighboring vostochny opencast mine owned by the eurasian energy corporation . but that opencast mine , unlike bogatyr and severny , was initially designed and constructed for continuous - flow coal production and coal blending at surface pile stores . the formation of the piles is carried out by loading coal of different quality using the “chevron” method ( triangular - shaped piles with the apex on the long axis ) . complete blending is achieved when the coal is loaded into cars by transverse loading along the pile width using special drum - type machines . bak is planning to switch to the same technology at bogatyr and severny .
in 2017 bogatyr coal llp plans to ship 33 , 9 million tons of coal to its customers , including 24 , 8 mm tons of coal to the customers in kazakhstan . the coal shipments to the customers of the russian federation are planned to be on the level of 9 , 1 mm tons . the main customers of bogatyr coal llp are reftinskaya , serovskaya , troitskaya power plants , ekibastuz power plant # 1 , ekibastuz power plant # 2 , almaty and stepnogorsk heat power plants , karaganda energotsentr llp ( heat power plants # # 1 and 3 ) , sevkazenergo jsc , astana - energy jsc ( heat power plants # # 1 and 2 ) , kokshetauzhylu state public enterprise , pavlodarenergo jsc , bassel group lls ( karaganda ) .
the severnoye loading and hauling department loads and ships the coal produced . this highly mechanized facility is technologically linked to the severny open - cast mine and field # 9 of the bogatyr open - cast mine . its engineering base comprises four depots , ten stations , train services , railroad maintenance services , and signalling and communications facilities . the length of track comprises 108 . 2km .
the perspective plants of bogatyr coal llp are related , first of all , to large projects of the power sector of kazakhstan on reconstruction and introduction of new power facilities at ekibastuz power plants # # 1 and 2 , karaganda heat power plant # 3 , power system of the city of astana , along with the construction of balkhash thermal power station and heat power plant in taldykorgan .
the modern technological scheme of the coal operations at the enterprise is as follows : mining coal at bogatyr coal llp is carried out by shovel excavators , shipment – by bucket - wheel ones . coal is hauled to a bucket - wheel excavator in the stockpile from different seams , thus coal ash content blending takes place – down to 42 % and increase of its calorific value , after that the products are loaded into rail cars .
the company is implementing nature - conservation measures such as ongoing major repairs of environmental equipment , rehabilitation of water - treatment facilities at the bogatyr opencast mine , sprinkling during coal excavation ( resulting in a 70 % reduction in dust formation ) , measures to reduce dust and gas emission during blasting operations ( resulting in a 30 - 40 % reduction ) , reclamation of dump areas in a stable condition , and preventing and fighting spontaneous fires in waste dumps .
march 2017 – the beginning of modernization of srs ( k ) - 2000 # 2147 bucket - wheel excavator . the term of the works finish is november 2017 . the conducted modernization will allow prolonging the exploitation term of the excavator through to 2027 . the course of the works fulfillment is under the special control of the management of bogatyr coal llp . the contract supervision of the quality of the works fulfillment is implemented by the representative office of the german company manufacturer - takraf gmbh - along with the client .
2010 - the end of the reconstruction of the transportation scheme at bogatyr coal mine . the reconstruction allowed reducing the length of the in - pit rail tracks and number of rail switches , increasing their passing capacity up to 150 thousand tons of coal per day . the new transportation scheme allowed reducing the average distance of coal transportation from 16 down to 12 kilometers , increasing the productivity of the main equipment and suspending the growth of a coal prime - cost . over 40 million tons of coal was unblocked without any additional costs for overburden .
supplies of blended coal will approach 3 million tons in 2004 , and they will be boosted in subsequent years to 14 million tons or 40 % of the annual output . reconstruction of the complex will be completed in the third quarter of 2004 . the bulk of the work has now been finished at bogatyr . in particular , inter - terrace and coal face re - loaders and coal face and lifting conveyors have been installed . the complex will continue in operation until 2015 when the opencast mine will switch completely to the cyclical and continuous method .
russia , as the main consumer of ekibastuz coal , only permits supplies of this product that conform to gost r51591 - 2000 , adopted on 1 january 2002 . bak supplies about 20 million tons of coal annually to power plants in the ural region . the ten largest power plants in that region and in west siberia depend on coal from ekibastuz . this year , coal consumption at the russian verkhne - tagilskaya , krasnogorskaya and troyitskaya power plants increased , the latter resuming the use of bogatyr coal at the end of the last year after a short interruption .
the coal blending technology employed at the rotary and conveyor complex is tested at bogatyr . the technology envisages developing the coal strata by utilising rotary excavators at two coalfaces with differing quality of coal at different horizons . coal is loaded under a system of conveyor - railway technology providing for its blending . as a result , the loading of second quality group coal is reduced , and the production and supply of coal is increased to 100 , 000 tonnes per day . this improves the consumer qualities of ekibastuz coal supplied by the coalmine to heat - power plants in kazakhstan and russia .
a number of designs and methods for processing have been developed and implemented to date , in order to minimize ash content fluctuations and reduce supplies of class ii coal . for example , a buffer blending store has been set up at bogatyr opencast mine . in this technology , a coal pile with a volume of up to 300 , 000 tons is formed by a rotary excavator , with high and low ash content coal forming layers in proportions that ensure class i quality for the whole pile , with subsequent transverse loading . this method allows up to 150 , 000 tons of class ii quality to be blended while forming a single pile .
during phase 3 , the final part of the program ( 2010 - 2014 ) , the complete switchover to the cyclical and continuous production technology will be completed , with all bogatyr’s output being blended . huge investments in technical modernization will be delivered by bak at that stage . in particular , two main conveyors will be built with crushing and handling points for reloading coal from mine cars to conveyors . in addition , a powerful lifting conveyor will be installed for transporting coal from the opencast mine ( length 900 m , lift height 200 m , capacity 40 million tons per annum ) , as well as a blending and loading complex ( blc ) at a height of + 170 m with an annual capacity of 40 million tons .
the coal - bearing series at bogatyr include four commercial quality coal - seams in which all the coal reserves are concentrated ; however , only the first three closely located seams with a total thickness of 160 - 180 m are being developed . the quality of the coal in seams 1 - 3 has been quite well studied : this is high - ash coal with an average ash content of 43 % . the general trend in the basin is for ash content to increase with depth . coal with the lowest ash content and a relatively uniform quality ( average ash content 36 . 5 % , total seam thickness 60 - 65 m ) is found in the upper part of the complex in seams 1 and 2 . the coal content of these seams is high , averaging at 92 % of the total seam volume . the specific characteristic of ekibastuz coal is the high content of dispersed mineral impurities in the organic matter , which reduces the efficiency of coal cleaning . therefore the coal is categorized as hard - to - clean .
as it is testified by historical documents , the discovery of ekibastuz coal basin relates to as early as 1867 . the coal mining has begun at the border of the xix –xx centuries by voskresenskiy mining joint stock company , and since 1913 – by english concession company “kirgizian mining joint stock company” , where the main shareholder was lesly urkart , the english millionaire , and gerbert guver , the usa former president .
after establishment of the soviet power in 1918 on the territory of pavlodar priirtyshje , the decree of board of people’s commissars was signed on nationalization of ekibastuz coal copies . however , only after the war the surveyors and designers came there . in 1954 , the first coal mine named further as central mine was commissioned with the capacity of 3 mm tons per year .
from that time ekibastuz coal has been shipped to the power plants of the ural region of the russian federation . the first train was delivered to krasnogorsk heat power plant , which became the unique proving ground for ekibastuz coal . in that very year in a small ural town called troitsk the construction of the new power plant started – the mother of the big power engineering of the southern ural . the plant , like other power plants built later , was designed and built purposefully for burning high - ash ekibastuz coal .
the area of the coal - bearing strata of ekibastuz basin is 77 square kilometers . it is stretched from the north - west to the south - east for 12 kilometers approaching six kilometers in width . the maximum depth of the coal mass deepening fluctuates within the limits of 530 meters , and the overburden seam – from 3 to 670 meters . the total coal reserves in ekibastuz basin are 10 billion tons .
reducing the time of railcars turnover by 2 , 5 times , introducing processes of accurate railcars loading without uncoupling rail trains .
december 1973 года – the fifth phase of the mine commissioned . thus , the mine became the largest in the soviet union , its total capacity made 25 million tons of coal per year .
december 1978 года – the eighth phase was commissioned , the capacity of the enterprise achieved 42 , 5 million tons of coal per year , what allowed the mine standing in line with world largest mining enterprises .
december 25 , 2006 - the automated dispatch control system ( adcs ) of technological processes was put in a trial operation . its purpose was to provide monitoring of mining works , manage the process of forming coal stockpiles by quality . the use of adcs allowed increasing the productivity of mining and transportation equipment for account of reduction of idle - time of excavators waiting for empty cars and vehicles waiting for loading .
2010 - 2013 - modernization of srs ( k ) - 2000 # # 1143 , 1144 , 1145 , and 1146 bucket - wheel excavators .
november 2013 – march 2014 - the construction and commissioning of the automobile cross - over at the elevation - 50m over the lifting conveyor klp - 3 of the conveyor and railroad complex allowed providing the delivery of overburden rocks by automobile transport from lower and average - height elevations of the working slope of mining section # 6 to mining section # 5 and starting the formation of lower layers of the in - pit dump called sinklinalny . the newly built cross - over reduced the distance of overburden rocks transportation from mining section # 6 down to its minimum and allowed mining coal by the truck - rotary - conveyor - railroad technology without the change of the track of conveyors of the conveyor and railroad complex until the introduction of the first line of the truck and conveyor technology .
february - june 2014 - the construction and commissioning of the shop on assembly and disassembly of wheels of large trucks and other technological mobile equipment with the installation of the purchased tire servicing press called edmo .
december 2013 – october 2014 - the construction and commissioning of the base at the industrial site of kovylnaya rail station to provide the disassembly - assembly works while making medium and major overhauls of technological mobile equipment ( 25 units of machinery per year ) .
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in addition , a large project was launched in 2000 to improve the environmental situation in the region through the conservation of blocks 2 and 3 at the severny opencast mine . as a result , mining operations will be concentrated in blocks 1 and 4 , the overburden transportation distance will be reduced considerably and preparations will be made for switching to mine car and conveyor technology .
phase 2 ( 2006 - 2008 ) envisages the introduction of a method relying on hydraulic excavators and large dump trucks in combination with the conveyor and rail technology . rotary excavators at the coal faces will be partially replaced with single - bucket hydraulic excavators . coal will be loaded onto large dump trucks with a 100 - 150 - ton capacity and transported to the points where coal piles are formed and then loaded onto railway cars ; at this point the existing rotary excavator will be used . coal piles of specified qualities will be formed using motor vehicles according to the current quality management system . the ash content fluctuations in railway cars will be maintained at 3 - 4 % of the average . it should be noted that after phase 2 of the program is completed , the weight of blended coal supplied in 2008 - 2014 will increase to 94 % of total output , ousting group ii quality coal .
coal blending , which is necessary in order to satisfy differing consumer requirements , will be carried out at a high - capacity complex consisting of piling and lifting gear and a system of conveyors for receiving and loading . the loading point will allow railway cars to be loaded with an accuracy of up to 250 kg . the loading siding will be equipped with a tensometric balance for checking the weight of individual cars and whole trains . also within the framework of phase 3 , replacement of rotary excavators with single - bucket hydraulic ones will be completed at the coal faces . the fleet of large dump trucks will be increased in order to handle the planned annual output of 40 million tons .
the total investment planned for 2010 - 2014 is estimated at $ 220 million . at this point the company will discontinue the use of rail transport within the production complex and guarantee only class i quality coal supplies . at present coal from ekibastuz is divided into two quality classes : class i with an ash content of up to 43 % and a low heat value of 4 , 000 kcal / kg , and class ii , with values of 47 % and 3 , 500 kcal / kg . a batch of class i coal may include material with an ash content of up to 47 % , and a class ii batch may include coal with an ash content of up to 53 % , provided that the marginal ash content for the whole batch is not exceeded .
blending at coal faces is also envisaged . in the latter case , coal from different quality layers is loaded onto open mine cars in the required proportions , which results in better overall quality . these methods are certainly not original . they result in a considerable increase in operational costs because of the need to transport coal to a buffer store and reload it three times using excavators , with time and energy consumption increasing accordingly . however , the company must accept these additional costs in order to be able to supply coal of the required quality .
today the management of bak believes that implementing these investment projects and improving the quality of its coal are prerequisites for strengthening the company’s position in both the domestic and international markets . this action is dictated by competition in the fuel market .
the international transit tariff ( itt ) imposed by russia on kazakh coal shipments across its territory continues to pose a serious problem , as it renders kazakh coal uncompetitive . currently the itt is three times the rate paid for transporting coal by rail within kazakhstan . this problem will be addressed by the ekibastuz coal program developed by the government of pavlodar oblast together with companies operating in the ekibastuz basin and approved by the ministry of energy and mineral resources . in addition , in order to ease the tariff burden in kazakhstan , the program envisages dividing cargoes into three tariff classes , with coal falling into class i as a strategic product . these recommendations are supported by several members of parliament . if a solution is found allowing the cost of coal transport within the country to be reduced , and the governments of kazakhstan and russia succeed in optimizing the tariff policy , the potential of kazakh coal companies to serve the interests of the state will be fully unleashed .
according to forecasts by the ministry of energy and mineral resources , the existing potential appears to be sufficient on the whole to boost coal exports to 35 million tons per annum . in recent years the national oil output amounted to 70 - 75 million tons per annum ( 15 % of the cis output ) , making kazakhstan the ninth largest coal producer in the world ( 11 . 7 % ) . in accordance with the ministry’s draft development strategy for the coal industry , coal production will be increased to 82 million tons in 2005 , 90 million tons in 2010 and 95 million tons in 2015 . the industry is facing the tasks of introducing certification of the coal produced and bringing its quality up to iso - 2000 standards , which is especially important in the light of kazakhstan’s forthcoming membership of the wto . the achievements of the industry are already palpable : the structure of the coal produced has improved , resulting in a reduction in coal imports from 700 , 000 tons in 2000 to 200 , 000 tons in 2002 . there is no doubt that bak’s contribution to this success has been significant .
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kazakhstan people call the steppe situated in the heart of kazakhstan sary - arka , the yellow steppe . one day appak baizhanov , a marmot hunter , decided to build a fire here . to his amazement , some stones caught fire together with the brushwood . this happened in the mid - 19th century .
when the rumor of the combustible black stones reached the ears of russian merchant named ushakov ( who , unlike the nomads , knew the value of coal ) , he bought the plot of land for a song from a kazakhstan landowner , and soon sold it to the son of president carnot of france . the latter resold the land at a profit to british , who opened two collieries here .
when copper deposits were found near karaganda , it was again foreigners who took possession of them . soviet government nationalized both spassk copper smeltery , which was considered a large enterprise in those days , and karaganda coal mines , which supplied the smeltery with fuel , as well as other enterprises owned by foreign and russian capitalists .
karaganda coal basin , whose development was launched as far back as 1930 , has long been kazakhstan’s main coal supplier . it still produces up to 50 million tons of the “black stone” annually . two hundred kilometers to the northeast of karaganda , not far from the city of pavlodar on the river irtysh , are ekibastuz coalfields , which are among the largest in kazakhstan .
kazakhstan contains central asia’s largest recoverable coal reserves , with 37 . 5 billion short tons of mostly anthracitic and bituminous coal . kazakhstan produced 86 million short tons ( mmst ) in 2003 , while consuming 58 mmst , resulting in net exports of 28 mmst . russia is the largest importer of kazakh coal , followed by ukraine .
kazakhstan coal production , which was the soviet union’s third - largest producer behind russia and ukraine , has fallen by roughly 35 percent since independence . according to kazakhstan ministry of energy and natural resources , the country aims to be producing 100 million - 105 mmst annually by 2015 .
much of the decline in the last decade since independence has been due to mine problems ( over 30 people died in mining accidents during 2004 ) and problems obtaining outside foreign investment to maintain their economic viability . this latter factor will be crucial in obtaining kazakhstan government’s long term production targets .