Srinivasan received virtual currency as payment for the drugs and then routed that virtual currency through cryptocurrency exchanges. New and potentially more vulnerable population segments can be reached by exploitative drug dealers as they begin to sell on social platforms and the number of drug consumers in the US and around the world grows. The US Drug Enforcement Administration has warned that because dealers are “no longer confined to street corners and the dark web,” social media users’ posts and inboxes can be peppered by dealers seeking to purvey these addictive and, when misused, harmful drugs. On March 20, 2024, U.S., German, and Lithuanian law enforcement agencies seized Nemesis’ servers in a joint operation.
Anon Market
In total, we collected 248,359 listings from 10 anonymous online marketplaces and 1,138,961 traces (ie, threads of posts) from 6 underground forums. As observed in our data set, the top 3 marketplaces with the most opioid listings are Agora, Evolution, and Apollon. TRM Labs provides blockchain analytics solutions to help law enforcement and national security agencies, financial institutions, and cryptocurrency businesses detect, investigate, and disrupt crypto-related fraud and financial crime. TRM’s blockchain intelligence platform includes solutions to trace the source and destination of funds, identify illicit activity, build cases, and construct an operating picture of threats. TRM is trusted by leading agencies and businesses worldwide who rely on TRM to enable a safer, more secure crypto ecosystem.
Shifting Fraudster Tactics
On the dark web, you don’t need to be a technical expert to design ransomware, and that’s dangerous. Even people with little to no knowledge can buy ready-made ransomware and launch attacks on their victims. Too-good-to-be-true investment offers are another classic scam on the dark web. Early participants may see some profit, but that money usually comes from new victims, not actual earnings. Eventually, the system collapses, and most people lose their entire investment.
CISA Strengthens Software Procurement Security With New Tool
For example, the study of illicit drug use in juvenile justice 1 explores the high co-occurrence of conduct disorder symptoms with illicit drug use in youth involved in crime. Regardless, the DNM criminal economy continues to proliferate unimpeded by the intervention of law enforcement. The actors behind the possible attack on Blacksput threatened the administrators with the leakage of their identities, as well as to reveal sensitive operations between buyers and sellers. Likely, they used similar tactics, and were able to successfully phish some number of Blacksprut users. In both cases, this activity is coming from cybercriminal or semi-criminal elements, which are likely driven not just by their personal interest, but the direction from a third-party. This finding is roughly in line with the observation of 57 opioid vendors’ origin in a marketplace named Cryptomarket during the period of October 2015 through April 2016, which was reported by Duxbury et al 6.
- It might shorten the length of the chain, but as demand goes up, supply usually follows.
- The anecdotally reported lower presence of unwanted fentanyl in dark-web drugs is an attraction for many in an era when opioid markets have been flooded with it.
- When sites are shut down, vendors and purchasers simply switch to another platform, ensuring that trade remains relatively uninterrupted.
- Beyond Russia, RuTor services the CIS countries of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and much of Uzbekistan.
- Such pharmaceuticals could / will most likely have a negative impact on health or even result in death.
And while still massive, at USD 34.8 billion, the volume of illicit funds was 30% lower than the USD 49.5 billion recorded in 2022. Chainalysis also noted that some markets are openly advertising their wares in Russia, with giant 3D billboards (Kraken Market) and QR codes on subway trains (Mega Darknet Market). Marie had never purchased drugs in the conventional way—and still hasn’t. In order to gain control of victims’ computers, the malware Genesis Market employed used a legacy Bitcoin address to determine the command-and-control (C2) server, from which cybercriminals initiated remote access to infected devices.
The Marketplace As An Arsenal
Central to this effort is the use of advanced blockchain intelligence tools, which provide critical insights for tracing illicit transactions, identifying threat actors, and supporting enforcement actions. The progress made in disrupting illicit networks demonstrates the impact of collective action, but sustained vigilance and adaptability — empowered by cutting-edge blockchain analytics — will be essential to securing the crypto ecosystem in the years ahead. This has curtailed user confidence and stunted the ecosystem’s growth, creating a climate of distrust that is reminiscent of the aftermath of Op. Onymous (the law enforcement takedown of the Silk Road 2.0 darknet marketplace together with a host of smaller DNMs in 2014) and Op. Bayonet/GraveSac (the coordinated takedown of the AlphaBay and Hansa Market darknet marketplaces by US and European law enforcement in 2017), which left the Western DNM ecosystem reeling. Only four Russian-language DNMs left the approximately 20-strong ecosystem in 2024.
The 10 Biggest Dark Web Markets In 2025 – Updated List & Security Insights
Our study used opioid keywords and jargons to recognize listings and forum traces related to underground opioid trading activities. Our opioid jargon identification procedure implemented a modified semantic comparison model 19. This model employed a neural network–based embedding technique to analyze the semantics of words in different corpora. In particular, in the semantic comparison model, the size of the input layer was doubled while not expanding either the hidden or the output layer. Hence, every word has 2 vectors, each describing the word’s relations with other words in one corpus.
The issue calls for international cooperation, policy adjustments and a deeper understanding of the constantly evolving cyber landscape. The term darknet drugs refers to illegal substances that are bought and sold on online platforms that require specific software to access, like Tor. This section explores the dark web, the types of drugs available, the implications of their trade, and relevant safety concerns. In addition to Empire Market’s more than 18,000 drug listings, another site called Nightmare Market now lists 28,000 drug products, along with the dark web’s usual assortment of stolen credit card numbers, counterfeits, and hacking tools. A new, Reddit-style forum site called Dread, hosted on a Tor hidden service, has already replaced the seized DeepDotWeb as a community hub, where users discuss which site to use when one is taken down by police or turns out to be run by scammers.
Russian Language Darknet Marketplaces Continue To Drive Overall Volume Of Illicit Drug Sales
The average grams of drugs in the 15 ranged regions presented by the Russian region per 100,000 population. Table 2 represents the 15 regions with the highest volumes of all drugs in Russia. Central and Eastern regions are most affected; the leaders are Moscow and Saint Petersburg cities and oblasts. While Hydra specified a category for each listing, we decided to further categorize all listings into 5 categories, aligning with the categorization offered by the Global Burden of Disease study. This adaptable approach ensures that our results can be harmonized for future comparison, providing a comprehensive understanding of the drug market dynamics. Upon inspection, the main difference with Anon Market is their vast catalog of pharmaceuticals, specifically prescription drugs.
This paper recognizes that the data it uses originates from the darknet, a virtual illicit market. The research team took all protective measures to avoid any active participation in illegal activities, but the data analysis was strictly for academic purposes, which would enrich scientific knowledge in the field of public health. Data for the study are publicly available from the Hydra darknet marketplace and from official Russian health statistics. The use of these datasets is in accordance with ethical standards for research involving publicly available information. We aimed to use the dark web data and officially published indicators to identify the most vulnerable regions of Russia and the correlations between the pairs of variables to measure how illicit drug trade can affect population well-being. The engine of the marketplace protects the total number of users registered on it, but based on the number of unique shops, likely it may exceed 15,000 unique actors.
A Court Ruling On Bug Bounties Just Made The Internet Less Safe
The departure of market leaders such as Solaris Market — which ceased operations in autumn 2024 — is a rare occurrence. HSI New York leads and directs all operational and administrative activities of the El Dorado Task Force (EDTF). The EDTF is the premier money laundering task force in the nation and comprises more than 200 law enforcement personnel representing approximately 35 federal, state and local law enforcement and regulatory agencies. The EDTF encompasses a standalone Cyber Division as part of an effort to stay abreast of emerging criminal threats and in keeping with current and future investigative priorities.
Terrorism And Illicit Finance
The greatest number of purchases came from Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida. Civil libertarians wondered whether there was more to the Silk Road shutdowns than the FBI revealed. Was their case limited to details known to Cirrus as a Silk Road insider? Or did the FBI find a way to penetrate Tor anonymity and trace Internet addresses of other darknet sites? Experts agreed the greatest threat to anonymity for Tor users was information held unwittingly or recklessly on the user’s own computer.
Also identified were several notable sellers who migrated to Kraken from the now closed Hydra marketplace. Like BlackSprut, WayAway vendors appear to be more focused on operating within Russia and Belarus as noted by the locations marketed by the ‘El Chapo’ mephedrone shop. WayAway also features a searchable collection of former Hydra store operators. Like RuTor, BlackSprut also offers cash-out services, including Bitcoin-to-Ruble and C2C transactions.
