Shedding Light On The Dark Web
Though online markets still account for a small share of illicit drug sales, they are growing fast, and changing drug-dealing as they grow. Sellers are competing on price and quality, and seeking to build reputable brands.
Turnover has risen from an estimated $15m-17m in 2012 to $150m-180m in 2015. And the share of American drug-takers who have got high with the help of a website jumped from 8% in 2014 to 15% this year, according to the Global Drug Survey, an online study.
Online drug markets are part of the “dark web”: sites only accessible through browsers such as Tor, which route communications via several computers and layers of encryption, making them almost impossible for law enforcement to track.
Buyers and sellers make contact using e-mail providers such as Sigaint, a secure dark-web service, and encryption software such as Pretty Good Privacy (PGP). They settle up in bitcoin, a digital currency that can be exchanged for the old-fashioned sort and that offers near-anonymity during a deal.
Almost all sales are via “crypto-markets”: dark websites that act as shop-fronts. These provide an escrow service, holding payments until customers agree to the bitcoin being released. Feedback systems like those on legitimate sites such as Amazon and eBay allow buyers to rate their purchases and to leave comments, helping other customers to choose a trustworthy supplier.
The administrators take a 5-10% cut of each sale and set broad policy (for example, whether to allow the sale of guns). They pay moderators in bitcoin to run customer forums and handle complaints.
Once a deal is struck and payment is waiting in escrow, drugs are packed in a vacuum-sealed bag using latex gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints or traces of DNA, and dipped in bleach as a further precaution against leaving forensic traces. A label is printed (customs officials are suspicious of handwritten addresses on international packages). Smart sellers use several post offices, all far from their homes—and, preferably, not overlooked by CCTV cameras.
Some offer to send empty packages to new customers, so they can check for signs of inspection. Smart buyers use the address of an inattentive or absent neighbour with an accessible postbox, and never sign for receipt. Judging by the reviews, around 90% of shipments get through.
Despite the elaborate precautions, until now crypto-markets have tended not to last long. The first, Silk Road, survived almost three years until the FBI tracked down its administrator, Ross Ulbricht, aka “Dread Pirate Roberts”. He is serving a life sentence for money-laundering, computer-hacking and conspiracy to sell narcotics.
Its successor, Silk Road 2, lasted just a year before law-enforcement caught up with it. Buyers and sellers migrated to the next-biggest sites, Evolution and Agora. The former vanished in March 2015 with $12m-worth of customers’ bitcoin in an “exit scam”. Then Agora disappeared, claiming that it had to fix security flaws. The biggest still standing is Alphabay, though the recently opened fourth version of Silk Road could knock it off the top spot.
