CHAPTER I. THE ROLE OF THE INTERNET, INCLUDING SOCIAL MEDIA, IN DRUG TRAFFICKING AND USE
payments to sellers until delivery.
31
Estimates of the mon-
etary value of these markets vary substantially. In 2021,
UNODC suggested that the total value of the drug trade
on cryptomarkets is around $315 million annually, while
alternative estimates place total sales on individual plat-
forms at between $36 million and $221 million annually.
32
e overall value of this darknet trade may have quadru-
pled from the period 2011–2017 to the period 2017–2020.
Purchasing drugs on cryptomarkets involves a certain level
of technical literacy, and most people who use drugs are
young and educated.
33
16.
Buyers have reported that they use these markets
because they provide access to drugs of a more predictable
quality. Limited forensic tests conrm that drugs sourced
from cryptomarkets are less likely to be adulterated and
have higher purity compared with oine purchases.
34
Both
buyers and sellers perceive the transactions as less risky in
terms of rip-os, physical violence and threats compared
with street-level exchanges and even exchanges with known
dealers and friends.
35
Vendors typically operate only for
about half a year and deal with only a few buyers,
36
and
trades are generally concentrated among a few key vendors
who make most of the prots.
37
31
United States, Department of Justice, “ree Germans who alleg-
edly operated dark web marketplace with over 1 million users”; and
Martin Horton-Eddison and Matteo Di Cristofaro, “Hard interventions
and innovation in crypto-drug markets: the escrow example”, Global
Drug Policy Observatory, Policy Brief, No. 11 (2017), pp. 16–27.
32
Naoki Hiramoto and Yoichi Tsuchiya, “Measuring dark web mar-
ketplaces via bitcoin transactions: from birth to independence”, Foren-
sic Science International: Digital Investigation, vol. 35, art. No. 301086
(December 2020).
33
Venkataraman Bhaskar, Robin Linacre and Machin Stephen, “e
economic functioning of online drugs markets”, Journal of Economic
Behavior and Organization, vol. 159 (2019), pp. 426–441; and World Drug
Report 2022.
34
Fernando Caudevilla and others, “Results of an international drug
testing service for cryptomarket users”, International Journal of Drug
Policy, vol. 35 (2016), pp. 38–41.
35
Monica J. Barratt, Jason A. Ferris and Adam Winstock, “Safer
scoring? Cryptomarkets, social supply and drug market violence”, Inter-
national Journal of Drug Policy, vol. 35 (2016), pp. 24–31; and Andréanne
Bergeron and others, “e success rate of online illicit drug transactions
during a global pandemic”, International Journal of Drug Policy, vol. 99,
art. No. 103452 (2022).
36
Lukas Norbutas, “Oine constraints in online drug marketplaces: an
exploratory analysis of a cryptomarket trade network”, International Journal
of Drug Policy, vol. 56 (2018), pp. 92–100; and World Drug Report 2022.
37
Scott W. Duxbury and Dana L. Haynie, “Network embedded-
ness in illegal online markets: endogenous sources of prices and prot
in anonymous criminal drug trade”, Socio-Economic Review, vol. 21,
No. 1 (January 2023), pp. 25–50; Scott W. Duxbury and Dana L. Haynie,
“e network structure of opioid distribution on a darknet cryptomar-
k e t ”, Journal of Quantitative Criminology, vol. 34 (2018), pp. 921–941;
and Vincent Harinam, “Dealings on the dark web: an examination of the
trust, consumer satisfaction, and the ecacy of interventions against a
dark web cryptomarket”, PhD thesis, University of Cambridge, 2021.
A VPN, or virtual private network, securely connects com-
puting devices or networks over the public Internet. It
extends access to private networks, enhancing security,
reducing communication costs and oering flexibility for
remote work. VPNs can bypass Internet censorship. While
encryption is common, it is not inherent to a VPN. The con-
nection is established through tunnelling protocols, and
a public Internet-based VPN can oer some benets of a
private wide area network.
17.
Most markets are in English, but the Russian language-
oriented Hydra became the world’s largest darknet market in
2019 before being taken down in 2022.
38
Shipments across
international borders have declined with time, and crypto-
markets mostly serve national markets.
39
ese cryptomar-
kets may use caches or drop-o points for delivery. e seller
provides the location of the drugs using global navigation
satellite system-enabled technology on an encrypted instant
messaging app. e buyer can then pick up the drugs with-
out ever meeting the seller.
40
Recently, there has been an
emergence of marketplaces in Asia and South America,
and the overall geographical distribution of markets may
be changing, with the expansion of the darknet to those
regions.
41
18. e average transaction size on cryptomarkets is also
increasing. Apparently, there has been a shi towards an
increasing amount of wholesale sales of “ecstasy”-type drugs
and, secondarily, opioids (“wholesale” was dened as listings
priced over $1,000).
42
is trend underlines that cryptomar-
kets are anchored in oine drug markets and can serve as
virtual brokers, linking wholesalers with sellers who make
stock-sourcing purchases for oine distribution.
43
When
the scheduling of hydrocodone changed in the United States,
38
Anastasia Meylakhs and Ramil Saidashev, “A qualitative analysis of
the Russian cryptomarket Hydra”, Kriminologisches Journal, vol. 3 (2021),
pp. 169-185; and Jonathan Reed, “World’s largest darknet market shut
down, $25 million in bitcoin seized”, reat Hunting, 8 June 2022.
39
David Décary-Hétu, Masarah Paquet-Clouston and Judith
Aldridge, “Going international? Risk taking by cryptomarket drug ven-
dors”, International Journal of Drug Policy, vol. 35 (2016), pp. 69–76; and
Jakob Demant and others, “Going local on a global platform: a critical
analysis of the transformative potential of cryptomarkets for organized
illicit drug crime”, International Criminal Justice Review, vol. 28, No. 3
(September 2018), pp. 255–274.
40
EMCDDA and Europol, EU Drug Markets: Impact of COVID-
19; and Meylakhs and Saidashev, “A qualitative analysis of the Russian
crypto market Hydra”.
41
World Drug Report 2022.
42
Judith Aldridge and David Décary-Hétu, “Hidden wholesale: the
drug diusing capacity of online drug cryptomarkets”, International Jour-
nal of Drug Policy, vol. 35 (2016), pp. 7–15; and World Drug Report 2023.
43
Samantha J. Brown, Jonathan C. Reid and Wesley Myers, “‘Let’s
talk about stealing sh*t’: online socialization and its potential to inuence
oine oending”, Crime and Delinquency (2023); and EMCDDA and
Europol, EU Drug Markets: Impact of COVID-19.