Drug Trafficking in the Dark Web

Drug trafficking is one of the most widespread activities on the dark web, with drugs being the most commonly available product across illegal marketplaces. This illicit trade takes place on various platforms, including “drug markets,” chat applications, and forums on the dark web. The prevalence of drugs on the dark web underscores the critical role these platforms play in facilitating illegal activities.

What are the top countries mentioned in drug discussions on the dark web?

According to data from Lunar, our dark web monitoring platform, the countries most mentioned in drug trafficking posts on the dark web are the US, the UK, Germany, Russia, Netherlands, and Israel.

Cryptomarkets facilitate this trade through encrypted platforms like Tor and untraceable cryptocurrency transactions, enabling global, anonymous participation. Despite law enforcement efforts to dismantle these markets, their scalability and efficiency continue to drive their role in the illicit drug trade, presenting significant challenges for the authorities and law enforcement agencies. 

How are drug transactions made on the dark web?

Drug trafficking in the dark web involves various methods for transferring payments for illegal drugs, both of which leverage blockchain technology to ensure anonymity for both suppliers and buyers. 

• Direct payment –  involves transferring money directly to the supplier through their personal crypto address, which may be shared publicly in drug listings or privately through messages.
  
• Third-party payment systems involve the dark web platform acting as a middleman, where buyers pay the platform’s admin, who then transfers the payment to the vendor or provides credits for purchases. These approaches are designed to minimize scams and reduce the risk of fraudulent transactions in the context of drug trafficking on the dark web.

The top 3 sources for drug trafficking on the dark and deep web

Source #1: Marketplaces

Dark web marketplaces, both on the open web and on Tor, operate as decentralized marketplaces, which are by far the most common place for the illegal drug trade, alongside other illegal products.

Some of the most known marketplaces for trading drug products are WeTheNorth, Cocorico Market, OMGOMG, and AlphaBay.

Users, languages, and origins of products

There are dozens of drug-related dark marketplaces with thousands of users (vendors and buyers) that operate on them. According to our data, 92.8% of the drug-related activity in marketplaces is operated in English, followed by German (4.7%), French (2.2%), and Italian (1.2%).operated in English, followed by German (4.7%), French (2.2%), and Italian (1.2%).

What does a drug product listing look like on a dark web marketplace?

Drug traders list drug products by using a fixed template, which includes a few sections, including the name and the type of drug, the weight of the product, the location it’s shipped from, shipment details, and pricing.

In recent years, sellers also try to instill a sense of security to their possible buyer and allow escort deals, where the money of the buyer is more secure and due to that, the deal tends to be more reliable.

Source #2: Telegram

Telegram is a widely-used platform for dark web criminals and is a go-to cyberspace for vendors and buyers who use it on a daily basis. This platform is commonly used because of its accessibility, free use, and anonymity. If we add to that the fact that chats are an easy and instant platform for communications, it is no wonder that there are thousands of Telegram groups and channels that are primarily focused on the sale of drugs.

This may change because of changes made to Telegram’s privacy policy and other events following the founder, Pavel Durov’s arrest in 2024. Some threat groups moved their chats to other platforms. 

What does a drug product listing look like on Telegram?

Unlike the traditional drugs marketplace, there isn’t a commonly used template for drug listings published on Telegram. However, due to the instant nature of sharing many new items for sale, vendors are more likely to share in public further information that wouldn’t have existed in marketplaces; for example, crypto addresses for the transactions or detailed pickup locations, as shown in the example below.

Source #3: Dark web forums

As dark web forums function as a global digital town square for cyber criminals to discuss, share, and trade illegal products, drug trafficking is also inherently present on these sites. There are two types of forums, one that is solely dedicated to drug-related content, like The Majestic Garden. Other dark web forums host a variety of illegal discussions, such as forums like Dread, but they have a dedicated section for drug-related discussions and trade.

In both cases, there are more open discussions about drugs in general, whether sharing experiences or any new relevant data, but also a lot of advertisements of many sellers trying to promote themselves.

Some of the well-known forums for drug discussions and trading are Dread, NZ Darknet Market Forums, and The Majestic Garden.

What does a drug product listing look like on a dark web forum?

Below is a post published on the Crime Market dark web forum, written by a vendor selling different types of drugs.

Identifying the seller – caution in the process

As drug trafficking is illegal all over the world, the drug marketplaces became very popular, if on the dark web or dedicated Telegram groups.
Since the penalty for such an offense can yield many years of prison time, and the authorities always try to lure possible sellers and buyers to different kinds of traps, known as honeypots, the users try to hide themselves as much as they can and add layers of security to avoid de-anonymization by other users or worse than that, by the police.

Each seller or buyer gets a score which indicates his credibility in the specific market he operates.
The score moves between 0 to 10, and is determined by different elements, depending on if you are a buyer or a seller.

For buyers, some of the ground rules for determine the score is if you pay in time, if an anomaly was aroused regarding your username or the way of your writing (a thing that users on multiple marketplaces tend to recognize), especially when detailing in cases where a user got banned from 1st marketplace due to scam attempt, and goes back to another marketplace with a different username.

For sellers, it goes almost the same. If buyers tend to complain about the quality of the drugs, if they report the seller as part of an exit scam (where he gets the money and flees).

Today, each marketplace holds the feature of “score” to buyers and sellers as one, and some even enlarge to allow escort deals, where a reliable 3rd party vouchers for the sell and holds the money until the buyer gets the product as promised in good quality.

The future of drug trade on the deep and dark web

With the ease of access to drug trading platforms, such as dark web forums, chat applications, and marketplaces, it is no wonder that drug trafficking has become one of the most common crimes on the dark web. Sellers have complete anonymity, and buyers have access to an easy-to-use platform for purchasing new drugs.

Law enforcement agencies around the globe often monitor these platforms for illegal activities and counterfeiting. Any rigorous monitoring solution requires access to timely, constant, and structured dark web data to track relevant mentions, the latest trends of illegal drug trafficking, profiling the main drug players, and other relevant information to curtail these illegal operations.