There's a phrase, "the elephant in the living room", which purports to describe what it's like to live with a drug addict, an alcoholic, or an abuser. People outside such relationships will sometimes ask, "How could you let such a business go on for so many years? Didn't you see the elephant in the living room?" And it's so hard for anyone living in a more normal situation to understand the answer that comes closest to the truth.
"I'm sorry, but it was there when I moved in. I didn't know it was an elephant. I thought it was a part of the furniture." There comes an aha-moment for some folks, the lucky ones when they suddenly recognize the difference.
What Is the Dark Web Market?
The dark web is defined as all content hosted on darknets, or online networks that require a specific browsing software to access. It’s a subset of the deep web, meaning it’s not indexed by search engines like Google or Bing, and therefore less transparent and more difficult to scrutinize.
The dark web is most widely used as a black market trading post where people sell drugs, cryptocurrency, porn, and data stolen in illegal breaches. Law enforcement agencies like the FBI have repeatedly carried out stings on the dark web to arrest and charge criminals, but illegal activity continues to proliferate. The secrecy afforded by the dark web has also granted activists and political dissidents a place to organize with less government scrutiny. Governments across the globe have made attempts to ban encrypted servers, while activists have defended encryption tools.
In July 2017, federal agents took down the Alphabay marketplace, then one of the largest and most profitable sources for drugs on the dark web. At the time, it seemed like a messy end to the string of darknet takedowns that started with the Silk Road. But more than a year and a half after the takedown, federal agents are still making arrests in Alphabay cases, chasing down dealers who sold drugs through the site.
History of Dark Web Market: the Silk Route
Silk Road was an online black market and the first modern darknet market, best known as a platform for selling illegal drugs. As part of the dark web, it was operated as a Tor hidden service, such that online users were able to browse it anonymously and securely without potential traffic monitoring. The website was launched in February 2011 but development had begun six months prior.
Initially, there were a limited number of new seller accounts available and new sellers had to purchase an account in an auction. Later, a fixed fee was charged for each new seller account.
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Silk Road emerged as the most sophisticated and extensive criminal marketplace on the Internet at the time, serving as a sprawling black-market bazaar where unlawful goods and services, including illegal drugs of virtually all varieties, were bought and sold regularly by the site’s users. While in operation, Silk Road was used by thousands of drug dealers and other unlawful vendors to distribute hundreds of kilograms of illegal drugs and other unlawful goods and services to well over 100,000 buyers and to launder hundreds of millions of dollars deriving from these unlawful transactions.”
The Present Status
VICE News analysis shows darknet drug markets are emerging from coronavirus lockdown stronger than ever, with increased sales and more robust defenses against hackers. Darknet drug markets are thriving despite the coronavirus lockdown, with sales up, delivery times faster than Amazon, and more robust defenses against hackers, according to an analysis by VICE News.
As the routines and restrictions of the working day receded for millions on lockdown, buying drugs online has never been so popular, research shows. What’s more to it is that, as Covid-19 restrictions lift, these markets, which deliver drugs to millions of people worldwide every day, are emerging from a tough few years with their immune systems boosted. This is due to a combination of technical innovation, the collaborations between competitors, and sheer good Darknet drug markets are in a golden age. This is as per the darknet researcher Dark Fail.
"People worldwide have been stuck at home exploring Tor (an internet browser used to access markets privately) and buying drugs. In January, the markets were hard to access, as they were under permanent attack from hackers. Now, they are operating quicker than ever before."
Analysis by VICE News, EU agencies, and tech firms reveal that boosted by coronavirus panic buying, online sales of cannabis, MDMA, cocaine, and mephedrone are all flourishing at, or above, prior averages. On the most popular global market, Empire, where many retailers offered lockdown deals, the business has been especially brisk. There are thousands of positive reviews about drug quality and speed of delivery.
Sales and Turnover: an Increment In Both
In May, the EU’s drugs agency, the EMCDDA, reported that Cannazon, a cannabis-only online market, sold 1.6 tonnes of weed, worth €5.2 million ($5.9 million), up 27 percent in volume between January and March.
Sales are hard to measure with certainty on darknet markets, but by checking customer feedback with specialist software it is possible to estimate trends. Several of the UK’s biggest online drug vendors have maintained positive feedback on around 1,000 to 2,000 sales monthly since January. That figure is broadly in line with its average number of sales. There was an increase in larger-value orders, coronavirus-themed deals, and cut-price custom deals, normally given to valued offline resellers.
Lockdown prompted some drug buyers to buy online for the first time, not so much out of necessity, but because of curiosity and opportunism.
Surge in Investigations
For example, Tony, a 25-year-old restaurant delivery driver from London, was furloughed in April. He explained over Signal, “I had free time. I’d microdose with mushrooms a few times, and I loved it. A long time ago, in Thailand, my best friend and I did proper mushroom trips. I called him up in lockdown to catch up and he taught me how to use the dark web. The mushrooms turned up a few days later at my house. It looked like a fat letter. It was £48 for four grams. I’m getting some acid next. Or 2C-B, which I’ve never had.”
Stories like these have a radicle role in the current surge in investigations.
If you wish to learn more about the whole concept of “online stock”, check out this article on Taking stock online
Orders Being Delivered Despite Everything
This market growth spurt was surprising. As two drug smugglers explained to VICE News, the fear was that lockdowns and tighter borders would make all drug imports riskier, meaning drugs would be in short supply.
Darknet drug markets and the global supply chain that provides them with the goods to sell depend on drugs imported from China. In February and March, many factories across China closed, among them chemical supply firms.
At the height of lockdown, mail-sorting offices were over-run, short-staffed and swamped with millions of extra parcels as online sales boomed. This had a knock-on effect on the darknet drug trade, which relies on postal deliveries to keep business moving.
"The dynamics in the drug trade on the dark web mirrored those of legitimate online sectors," said Sixgill's report. "The same patterns of anxious consumers in an uncertain climate, supply-chain disruptions, and shipping delays [initially] impacted supply, pricing, and customer service."
Threats From Hackers
Over 2020, technical innovation and new commercial partnerships between competitors have meant many darknet markets are emerging from the virus stronger than ever. This spring, multiple darknet markets united to end months of hacker attacks that started in January. This has led to record levels of uptime at Empire, which is now accessible for 95 percent of each day, compared to 70 percent in January, according to users.
Essential darknet resources, such as community forums for vendor reviews or specialist search engines, have been rebuilt from the ground after police seized them. Today, these services allow users to search for any drug, sold by any vendor on any market, enabling trade to flow more freely.
Conclusion
The drug trade, both real and digital, is not only recession-proof but liable to bloom in times of economic growth. We now have decades of evidence showing how drug markets will keep on going, whatever the economic or political weather. And while many governments have floundered and faltered, the online drug trade has come out fighting. It is not the drug that makes a drug addict, it’s the need to escape reality.
Drugs and abuse are not solutions to anything.
Read about why you should stay away from drug abuse
Written By - Ifrah Amin
Edited By - Neha Kundu
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