Opioids such as heroin accounted for only 3% of all transactions undertaken by Australian cryptomarket vendors. Silk Road, AlphaBay, WallStreet and Monopoly Market are all familiar names in the digital graveyard of the dark web. Before these dark web marketplaces were shutdown, they sold a range of illegal products, from drugs to firearms. Archetyp launched in May 2020 and quickly grew to become one of the most popular dark web markets with an estimated total transaction volume of €250 million (A$446 million). It had more than 600,000 users worldwide and 17,000 listings consisting mainly of illicit drugs including MDMA, cocaine and methamphetamine. In response, social media companies’ algorithms to detect drug-selling behavior are getting smarter and are aggregating images and emojis, Fuller says.
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Background research tasks included learning from past drug lords, researching legal matters, studying law enforcement agency tactics and obtaining legal representation. Patterns recommended to avoid include hiring hitmen like Dread Pirate Roberts, and sharing handles for software questions on sites like Stack Exchange. One of the central76 discussion forums was Reddit’s /r/DarkNetMarkets/,777879 which has been the subject of legal investigation, as well as the Tor-based discussion forum, The Hub. In the absence of a legal market for these drugs, this violence will continue unabated, much as it has since the beginning of the war on drugs.
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SciVal was used to understand collaborative partnerships and analyze research trends 45. VOSviewer 46 is used for bibliometric mapping, and keyword clustering 47 has been done as part of the study. Prominence is an indicator of a particular Topic’s momentum or visibility. Topic prominence from SciVal was used to arrive at future research directions 48.
The dark web offers vital anonymity for vendors and buyers, who use cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin to process transactions. Operation Dime Store started as a HSI Chicago RAC/O’Hare investigation in summer, 2011. The operation was in response to small drug seizures taking place at the Chicago mail hub. The seizures were unusual, as shipments of that kind were not usually received through letter mail, were coming from international sources in abundance, and were being shipped all over the United States. ICE HSI opened an investigation to look into the specific source of the drugs.
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Substances other than cannabis are widely used worldwide, as shown by the ”grams without cannabis“ column. Evidence of a varied drug market includes the prevalence of substances other than cannabis in quantities that outweigh cannabis alone. The distribution of the supply of opiates by regions of Russia is more concentrated in the European and southern parts of the country. Figure 2 presents the correlation matrix of Hydra marketplace indicators with official statistical variables. This matrix is a crucial tool in our research, as it helps us identify and understand the relationships between these variables.
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The system alerts information on newly developed malware and exploits that still need to be deployed in attacks and can be used to assist security experts in threat analysis. While AI and ML can be modeled for the identification and predictability of anomalies, their power to test the extent of anonymity was studied 63 in the context of the Darkweb. Their work investigates the degree to which anonymity tools and the traffic they hide can be identified using machine learning classifiers and a public dataset. The third highest cited publication 64 addresses the limitations of the traditional classification of illicit activities, followed by most AI-based research studies, by proposing a better taxonomy using a two-dimensional model. This significantly enhances the ability to record various crimes more efficiently, allowing automated retrievals. The dismantling of Archetyp Market marks a significant milestone in the ongoing battle against darknet drug trafficking.
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Operation SpecTor builds on the successes of prior years’ operations and takedowns of marketplaces, which result in the seizure of darknet infrastructure providing investigators across the world with investigative leads and evidence. These leads allow U.S. and international law enforcement agencies to identify darknet drug vendors and buyers, resulting in a series of coordinated, but separate, law enforcement investigations, resulting in the statistics announced today. Prior to its takedown by law enforcement, narcotics traffickers and cybercriminals openly traded in illegal drugs and services on Nemesis, which was designed with built-in money laundering features. Nemesis had over 30,000 active users and 1,000 vendors and facilitated the sale of nearly $30 million worth of drugs around the world between 2021 and 2024, including to the United States.
US Department Of The Treasury
It was in this vacuum that Archetyp emerged, eventually becoming a key landing zone for vendors displaced by earlier market collapses. One of its defining features was its structured support for identity continuity. Archetyp encouraged vendors to re-establish their reputations through Pretty Good Privacy (PGP)-signed migration messages – cryptographically signed proofs that linked new accounts to profiles from previous marketplaces. This allowed buyers to verify that they were transacting with the same vendor as before. 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. Despite this, noncannabis drugs remain prevalent across all regions, hinting at a diverse drug market in the country.
- According to the Index, the online purchasing of synthetic drugs may suggest the existence of an established cyber environment, which implies a heightened risk of cyber-dependent criminality.
- First, bibliometrics can be influenced by factors such as the prestige of the journals in which research is published, the language in which it is written, and the number of authors on a paper 86.
- While Darkweb was originally built for military communication and advocating freedom of speech, it has also provided technology enablement and power to adversaries to masquerade heinous activities.
- Keep in mind that visiting the dark web isn’t illegal, but engaging in criminal activity there is.
These findings indicate that the prices of Australian darknet drugs are much more closely correlated to local street prices than they are to those sold by foreign vendors. Only methamphetamine was significantly cheaper when purchased from an Australian cryptomarket vendor compared to a local street dealer, with prices approximately 45% lower when sourced online. To the UNODC, this suggests “an increase in wholesale activities” on the dark web—though this could also reflect consumers who buy smaller quantities shifting from the dark net to the clear net and encrypted messaging apps. Platform shutdowns can disrupt logistics, lead to arrests and seize goods, but they do not break apart the dark web’s recovery architecture. And so, the cycle continues – one closure followed by the next platform launch. Just as Archetyp filled the void left by the dismantling of other online drug markets that existed before it, its successor may already be taking shape.
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- Based on our observations from analysis on dark web data using Lunar, we’ve identified the top 7 marketplaces on the dark web in 2025.
- OFAC’s designation of Parsarad was the result of strong partnership and coordination with the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation, FinCEN, and a range of European law enforcement partners.
- We also carefully used the VOSviewer thesaurus feature to merge synonyms of certain keywords into a single term.
- The research used appropriate sources of data and effective practices to analyze the data to secure its validity and reliability.
- Archetyp was more than just the next online drug market to fall, having absorbed much of the vendor traffic displaced by earlier market closures.
Operation RapTOR includes law enforcement actions taken by JCODE member agencies, to include ICE HSI; the DEA; FBI; FDA-OCI; IRS-CI; and USPIS; in addition to foreign partners listed below. Credible reporting from the referenced agencies, in addition to contributions from ATF; Army CID; CBP; Department of Treasury’s FinCEN and Office of Foreign Assets Control; and NCIS enabled domestic law enforcement actions in support of Operation RapTOR. Local, state, and other federal agencies also contributed to investigations through task force participation and regional partnerships. Consumption may occur much more at home, especially with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic globally 58.
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As Telegram has end-to-end encryption and anonymous profiles, it makes it an ideal choice for threat actors and hackers to take advantage of. As mentioned earlier, launching a cyberattack doesn’t require any hacking skills. Even people with zero technical knowledge can buy phishing kits, ransomware, or stolen logins. They sell these files for just a fraction of the original cost on the surface web or even share freely, which makes them tempting for people looking for shortcuts.
Grapes and baby bottles are the calling cards for codeine-containing cough syrup, or lean. In the weeks leading up to its takedown, Archetyp had already started to show signs of trouble. Users encountered ‘maintenance’ messages and several alternative access links failed to load.
Brian usually buys his illegal drugs from “traditional dealers,” as he put it. But occasionally, he’ll ask a friend who already uses a darknet marketplace to get him something from there. He’s heard too many stories about buyers getting busted when law enforcement organizations take over sites to feel comfortable. After weathering seven in-person busts over the years, he’d prefer not to get caught again. 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.
