TorWatch news: darknet enforcement, Tor and privacy, newest first
The newest document is the Tor Project's, posted 9 October 2026. Tor is keeping the technical work with Mullvad and has paused joint promotion. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Chicago dated a release 7 October and said a judge had that Monday given Empire Market's co-creator 40 years. On 5 October, FinCEN withdrew two proposed rules on digital assets. Each of those is the organisation's own page. The notes linked from the table are where a later article added something the organisation did not say.
The notes, newest first
| When | What happened | The organisation's page confirms | That page does not say |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9 to 15 October 2026 | Ledger wallet implant | Ledger says a criminal group fitted hidden components to genuine devices and fed them back through resellers in Southeast Asia, that its chip, operating system and servers were not flawed, and that it has asked authorized resellers in the region to suspend sales. | A loss total. The $93.2 million figure is an on-chain estimate reported by CoinDesk. Ledger has not confirmed it, and has not named the group. |
| Mid-September to 1 October 2026 | Dark Matter market stops paying out | Nothing. No police force, court or analytics firm has published an account. A user warning dated 14 September says withdrawals were blocked and the admins did not answer. The University of New South Wales count had Dark Matter at 9,030 drug listings in January 2026. | That it was seized, that it was an exit scam by an official's definition, or how much users lost. |
| Mid-September to 1 October 2026 | Nexus market stops paying out | Nothing. No police force, court or analytics firm has published an account. The ending is known from user reports, and the University of New South Wales count had Nexus at 6,943 drug listings in May 2026. | That it was seized, that it was an exit scam by an official's definition, or how much users lost. |
| 9 October 2026 | Tor and Mullvad | The relationship is not being ended. Technical collaboration continues, under what Tor calls a narrowly scoped agreement. Proactive co-branding is paused, including joint promotion and language on Tor's channels that suggested a broader alignment. | The co-founder's surname, the party, the amount, or the date of the donation. Any flaw in Tor Browser or Mullvad Browser, and any instruction to uninstall either one. |
| 7 October 2026 | Empire Market's sentence | Raheim Hamilton, 30, of Suffolk, Virginia, received 40 years and a $5 million fine. He and Thomas Pavey operated the market from 2018 to 2020. The release says more than four million transactions, valued at more than $430 million, and net drug sales of nearly $375 million. Hamilton pleaded guilty earlier in 2026 to a drug conspiracy. | That the 2020 disappearance was an exit scam. The release never uses those words. It also gives no calendar date beyond "on Monday", and no sentence for Pavey. |
| 5 October 2026 | Two FinCEN proposals withdrawn | FinCEN withdrew a proposed rule on recordkeeping for convertible virtual currency and unhosted wallets, and a proposed special measure on convertible virtual currency mixing. | That holding a privacy coin was illegal and now is not. That mixing is lawful. What the withdrawal changes, and what the EU and UK rules still require, is the crypto privacy page. |
Which stories are confirmed by an official source?
Tor's post, bylined isabela, says a political donation by a Mullvad co-founder raised questions about the funding relationship. The decision that follows is the boundary in the table. Tor writes that the collaboration has already fed work back into Tor Browser's code, and that continuing it "carries a cost to trust for some in our community". The note keeps Mullvad's 20 July post, which calls the gift a private donation by Daniel, separate from the articles of 12 October that name a party and a sum. Those names are not in either organisation's post. Nothing in Tor's statement is a vulnerability notice, and nothing in it tells a Tor Browser user or a Mullvad Browser user to remove the software. Tor's post does not mention the VPN. The privacy-tools page is where Mullvad's VPN is weighed against the other options.
The Chicago release calls Empire a dark-web marketplace Hamilton co-created, says drugs were the most prevalent activity, and lists stolen credentials, stolen personal information, counterfeit currency and hacking tools among the other goods. It says the two required cryptocurrency, encouraged tumbling and mixing, encouraged encryption, and let users rate vendors on how well shipments were concealed. Hamilton agreed to forfeit about 1,230 bitcoin, 24.4 ether, and three properties in Virginia. User counts, a sales figure tighter than "more than $430 million", and the argument about August 2020 are not in this release. The note puts the larger headcount in the local paper's column, attributed to the plea agreement, and shows why later write-ups calling 2020 an exit scam are ahead of the Justice Department's text.
Thomas Pavey, 41, of Ormond Beach, Florida, pleaded guilty last year. He agreed to forfeit about 1,584 bitcoin, two boxes of 25-ounce gold bars, three automobiles and two Florida properties, and the release says he is set to be sentenced by Judge Steven C. Seeger later in October. The release is dated 7 October and updated the same day. It does not name the day. Until a later release from that office gives the sentence, "later this month" is the official line.
FinCEN's 5 October release is a rulemaking withdrawal: two proposals, taken back. It is not a seizure and it is not a sentence. What it changes for someone holding coins is the legal map on the crypto privacy page.
Seizures and shutdowns that are not one of these notes
The raids, exit scams and arrests before October 2026 are not in the table above. The takedown timeline holds the police side in one dated record, with the release on each row: every operation since 2012, Hansa, the market the police ran, and the sentences. The history of darknet markets has the markets themselves, and keeps a seizure apart from an exit scam, which is the distinction the Empire release leaves unmade.