Incredibly disturbing things Spotlight documented included ads for the sale of human organs, murder-for-hire, even tickets to watch torture. Then, Lott downloaded a special browser called ‘The Onion Router’ or TOR, which blocks the tracking of your movements, to help ensure anonymity on the dark web. Watch our cyber team share their key insights from their investigations into the biggest dark web trends in 2022.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Dark Web Marketplaces
Judging by that buzzing trade, there’s little hint that just the week before, global law enforcement announced the takedowns of two of the world’s largest dark-web drug sites, known as Wall Street Market and Valhalla. Or that the most popular market, called Dream, had taken itself offline at the end of last month, perhaps sensing law enforcement closing in. Or that a multiagency US law enforcement task force devoted to stemming opioid sales on the dark web arrested more than 60 people in a major operation the month before. In addition, the surface web, including social media and e-commerce platforms, increasingly offers criminals – particularly in the illicit drug trade – a vast customer base, ease of use and a measure of anonymity. Wildlife trafficking is also becoming increasingly reliant on e-commerce, with Indonesia and China acting as major hubs for this trade.
Combating Transnational Crime
Prior to Keeper, Darren served as an advisor to JiWire, now called NinthDecimal. NinthDecimal is the leading media and technology service provider for the WiFi industry. He was formerly the Chief Financial Officer and a principal shareholder of Apollo Solutions, Inc., which was acquired by CNET Networks. If you want to learn all about privacy protection or cryptocurrency, the dark web has plenty to offer. There are a variety of private and encrypted email services, instructions for installing an anonymous operating system and advanced tips for the privacy-conscious. Most e-commerce providers offer some kind of escrow service that keeps customer funds on hold until the product has been delivered.
The Global Organized Crime Index 2023
In particular, we observed that 84 opioid supplier IDs synchronized similar product listings in both marketplaces at the same time. This might be because the suppliers tend to promote their products across various marketplaces and to increase sales. To collect the listing information of 5 anonymous online marketplaces (ie, Apollon, Avaris, Darkbay, Empire, and The Versus Project), we conducted a whole-site crawl. The crawler was implemented in Python and used the Selenium module to launch browsers and to send crawling requests 24. To avoid blocking from the marketplace, we provided as an input to the scraper a session cookie that we obtained by manually logging into the marketplace and solving a Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart (CAPTCHA). However, some sites, namely, the Empire Market, forced users to log out when the life span of the session cookie was expired.
Organ Trade
Co-occurrence of the same opioid suppliers across different anonymous marketplaces. We observed the same listings posted in different marketplaces and illustrate the dependency of the same opioid listings among different marketplaces. Note that we determined if 2 listings are identical by matching the same elements (ie, listing’s title and description information and the vendor’s name) in 2 listings. We observed that the marketplaces of Agora and Evolution shared 530 opioid listings from 290 unique supplier IDs. The opioid commodity with most listings across different marketplaces was #4 White Vietnamese Heroin, which can be found in the marketplaces Agora, Evolution, Hydra, and Pandora.
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- The dark web news site Deep.Dot.Web teems with stories of buyers who have been arrested or jailed for attempted purchases.
- The percentages of overall sales recorded in the dataset are presented for the top three categories and for the most common product within those categories only.
- There is very much a need for triangulation of different approaches to fully understand the function of these markets and to be able to delineate the implications that arise from the impressive data they generate.
- “There’s a shift from the old way of the drug trade to more of a modern, technological and digital era of selling drugs.”
“Operation RapTor shows that the dark web is not beyond the reach of law enforcement,” said Head of Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre, Edvardas Šileris. “Through close cooperation and intelligence sharing, officers across three continents identified and arrested suspects, sending a clear message to those who think they can hide in the shadows. Europol will continue working with our partners to make the internet safer for everyone.”
Top Dark Web Marketplaces Of 2025: A Deeper Dive Into Illicit Trade Markets
The United States saw 153 arrests as part of the international operation, followed by the United Kingdom, with 55, and Germany, with 52, according to the European Union law enforcement agency Europol, which coordinated it. This is all alongside the countless cases of celebrities and social media influencers caught up in crypto pump-and-dump schemes, where hype is used to artificially inflate the price of a token before the creators sell off their holdings and leave investors with worthless tokens. Usually these products are sent to the buyer by post and money transferred to the seller through the escrow system. Brian, a writer, harm reduction supporter and avid drug consumer in his 60s, hasn’t ever bought directly from the dark web.
In the UK, therefore, at the beginning of the study period, hypnotics & anxiolytics represented 8.5% of all UK online cryptomarket sales and this proportion increased by just under 1% per year, and this change is statistically significant at the 99.9% level. The fastest growing markets over the study period were (in reverse order) Canada, India, China and Sweden, with growth rates of 6.3, 6.3, 6.4 and 9.5 percentage points respectively. As discussed, there is lack of information about trends in these types of drug market, and despite the increasingly panicked tone of some recent media coverage a major question is whether cryptomarket research can shine a light on the reality of usage of these products. At the most general level, it is hoped that this work can further demonstrate that, with the appropriate limitations and nuances being included, cryptomarket digital trace analysis can be used as resource to understand wider trends in drug usage rates. Initial studies into drug sales on social media began to be published in 2012.
How To Report Fraud
Specific regions, such as the Chukotka Autonomous District and the Republic of Karelia, exhibit relatively prominent levels of drug usage compared to the other areas with similar demographic attributes, suggesting the influence of unique local factors on drug consumption patterns. The Republic of Karelia and the Chukotka have higher drug use rates than other regions of similar populations. Figure 2 presents the correlation matrix of Hydra marketplace indicators with official statistical variables.
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Purchasing drugs online also eliminates the danger posed by traveling in possession of illegal substances. If you happen to live far from your dealer—for me, stocking up on dope used to mean taking a Metro trip and walking through a sketchy neighborhood—this is a significant plus. Being able to have your drugs delivered right to your door is so much simpler. Vendors with higher feedback ratings can get away with asking for “early finalization.” This system (along with the reviews and forums) incentivizes them to sell what they say they’re selling; ripping people off has consequences. Despite this, noncannabis drugs remain prevalent across all regions, hinting at a diverse drug market in the country.
Still, that’s not too bad; nine days may be a very long time if you’re in withdrawal, but it’s manageable if you plan in advance. Some people really are better off using drugs (especially if their use helps them cope with serious trauma—and it often does). Without dope, I’m too hopelessly depressed to work, study or even eat regularly. “I hate to imagine where I’d be without it,” said Marie of her use during a traumatic period of her life.
Accessing them may require .onion links and the Tor browser, but caution is advised due to legality and cybersecurity risks. Cybersecurity experts should pay close attention to these trends, as they often indicate emerging threats and profit-generating tactics among the cybercriminal forums. The Abacus Market links to the new dark web marketplace sections and took over much of the vacuum left by the AlphaBay takedown. One of the most common is the exit scam, where a marketplace suddenly disappears and takes everyone’s money with it. There’s also a privacy angle—some users live in countries with censorship or surveillance, and the dark web gives them a space to communicate or access information more freely.
