2easy has quickly gained traction as a go-to platform for hackers looking to buy and sell databases containing breached credentials, Social Security numbers, financial records, and login details for online banking and e-commerce platforms. The market frequently makes headlines for releasing massive troves of stolen data, often as a way to advertise its services. The platform is favored by cybercriminals seeking access to accounts that can be exploited for fraud or sold to others.
- When Archetyp went fully offline in June 2025, it triggered the same recovery reflexes seen after past collapses.
- In parallel, measures were taken in Germany and Sweden against one moderator and six of the marketplace’s highest vendors, and assets worth €7.8 million seized.
- The study’s scope is limited by data scope, reliability, and reliance on the darknet marketplace.
- Plus, the far-too-common grey sort (known confusingly as “grey death,” despite often being on the weaker side) is rather hard to inject.
Or that a multiagency US law enforcement task force devoted to stemming opioid sales on the dark web arrested more than 60 people in a major operation the month before. We have discovered, downloaded, and studied only 1 large darknet marketplace, “Hydra,” and selection and generalization biases can appear. The specific drug’s popularity on Hydra might be inflated due to vendor marketing strategies rather than real user preference. The dataset encompassed 3045 individual sellers marketing 6721 unique products via 58,563 distinct postings, each representing specific quantities sold in different Russian regions during 2019. In the second stage, we collected 31 variables from official sources to compare officially collected data with darknet data about amounts and types of selling drugs in every 85 regions of Russia. The health-related data were obtained from official published sources—statistical yearbooks.
A strong and significant correlation between the quantities of heroin for sale and lethal overdoses or fatal poisoning was established. 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.
Illegal Activities On The Dark Web
The Archetyp Market homepage now displays an official seizure banner, a common police tactic to publicly mark the dismantling of illegal platforms and raise awareness. The months and years after Silk Road’s closure were marked by a greatly increased number of shorter-lived markets as well as semi-regular law enforcement takedowns, hacks, scams and voluntary closures. Dark web markets work much like regular e-commerce websites but with extra layers of anonymity and encryption. Buyers browse listings, place orders, and pay with cryptocurrency — typically Bitcoin or Monero — to obscure transaction trails.
Immigration Enforcement
The agency, based in The Hague, built intelligence based on evidence from Germany, which it said seized the marketplace’s “criminal infrastructure” in December 2021. One defendant in California led an organization that bought fentanyl in bulk, pressed it into pills with methamphetamine and sold millions of pills to thousands of people on the dark web, he said. Although Archetyp Market’s main activity was drug trafficking, the Dark Web harbors a broader spectrum of dangers. Threat actors generally rely on it for its anonymous nature, which often enables them to run illicit schemes.
Such markets are typically accessible through the Tor network, which anonymizes traffic by routing it through multiple relays and encrypting each layer. This encryption makes attribution and tracking more difficult for authorities and cybersecurity professionals. Silk Road, AlphaBay, WallStreet and Monopoly Market are all familiar names in the digital graveyard of the dark web.
Reporting Countries
Despite the fact Archetyp had clearly raised the bar on security on the dark web, Operation Deep Sentinel – a collaborative effort between law enforcement agencies in six countries supported by Europol and Eurojust – took down the market. North America, Northern Europe and Western Europe are also major consumer hubs. According to the latest Index, North America’s average drug trade score rose by 0.13 points, while the scores for Northern Europe and Western Europe increased by 0.31 and 0.27, respectively. Emerging markets in Asia and Latin America, such as China, Vietnam and Venezuela, are also becoming more involved in drug purchasing and, to some extent, manufacturing.
Drugs And The Darknet: Perspectives For Enforcement, Research And Policy
Since 2020, 2easy has sold massive stealer logs with sensitive data like passwords, bank cards, and initial access credentials. It supports operations in multiple languages and operates on both clearnet and Tor. It maintains a very strict level of user verification and integration with an official Telegram account to provide real-time updates to users. Various cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Monero can be used to make purchases.
Consent For Publication
To combat online drug trafficking, states are introducing new laws, enforcement measures and digital reforms. However, to counter such a rapidly growing threat, countries will need to enhance intelligence gathering and harness emerging technology. This consistent upward trend across regions highlights the expansion and entrenchment of illicit drug markets globally, and is likely to be due in part to developments in online distribution. Notably, the 2023 Index also reveals a ‘strong and statistically significant’ correlation between the synthetic drugs trade and cyber-dependent crimes. 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. Archetyp Market operated as a drug marketplace for over five years, amassing more than 600,000 users worldwide with a total transaction volume of at least €250 million.
Our analysis links darknet drug data with published health indicators, such as overdose deaths, HIV cases related to drug use, and drug-related convictions, filling a gap in existing research. The role of the darknet in the drug trade has substantially grown over the last decade. With the advent of the Silk Road, the first darknet marketplace, customers and vendors have collaborated to disseminate and acquire goods and services that were previously unavailable digitally 5,6. Numerous studies have explored the growth of these anonymous marketplaces and their role in the cybercrime ecosystem 9-15.
Biggest Dark Web Marketplaces
Considering the COVID-19 restrictions, the illicit nature of the studied substances, and their effects on people’s health and well-being, we discovered all the proposed questions in this research. First, we learned how many drugs, in grams per 100,000 population, were found on the “shelves” of the Hydra dark market on a subnational level. In 2019, on an average day, the total quantity of drugs available for purchase on the darknet, in batches of 5 g or less, amounted to 124 kg. It was a period of COVID-19 restrictions, so we have data on the decreasing amounts of drugs distributed monthly in Russia during COVID-19 restrictions.
Eurocops Arrest Suspected Archetyp Admin, Shut Down Mega Dark Web Drug Shop
I’ve poked around; it’s not overwhelming, just a tight selection that works—think curated over chaotic. If you’re into a darknet market with a community pulse and solid uptime, Bohemia Dark Market’s climbing the ranks—give it a spin if you like a vibe that’s less corporate, more crew. Some of the sellers and their ads published at WayWay had references to another marketplace called Solaris. It also has its own forum with the same name for discussions between buyers and sellers. As of today, this marketplace is one of the most significant players in drugs sales in Dark Web.
Social media companies are under growing pressure to eradicate drug dealing on their platforms, says Ashly Fuller, a PhD candidate at University College London researching the sale and advertisement of illegal drugs to young people on social media. Data released by social media companies shows that millions of pieces of drug-related content are already taken down every year. (Facebook and Instagram took action against 9.3 million pieces of drug-related content last year, while Snapchat says it did so in 241,227 cases in the second half of 2023.) But these companies’ actions are sometimes indiscriminate. The accounts of organizations promoting drug harm reduction and social media personalities who post content about drugs and psychedelics, but who do not sell them, are being caught in the crossfire of efforts to get a grip on the issue.
- More than six years after the demise of Silk Road, the world’s first major drug cryptomarket, the dark web is still home to a thriving trade in illicit drugs.
- Others, particularly those based in Russia, focus solely on info stealer hacking tools and brokering stolen data.
- To do this we will link your MailOnline account with your Facebook account.
- The market is also known for its listings related to financial fraud, such as phishing tools and stolen credit card information.
- Interviews with merchants and consumers are a crucial part of understanding the mechanisms of the Internet market 5-8.
Why Security Leaders Prefer To Buy CTI Solution For SaaS Platforms In 2025
The goods on sale range from stolen credit card data and forged documents to illegal drugs, weapons, malware as a service, and hacking tools. Despite their ubiquity, online drug markets have distinct geographical hubs, shaped by regional roles in the global trade. Most dark web drug shipments originate from the US and Northern and Western Europe, as well as Russia. Russia also recorded the highest proportion (85.7%) of drug users purchasing on the darknet in 2022, and a drug trafficking average of 5.75 in the 2023 Global Organized Crime Index.
Search And Discussion
Aside from the banner, which bears the logos of participating agencies, authorities also published a video to amplify the operation’s visibility. Further market diversification occurred in 2015, as did further developments around escrow and decentralization. The dark web hosts a variety of illegal activities, many of which fuel cybercrime and real-world harm. This shows that while the dark web gets all the attention, it’s far from the internet’s biggest problem. Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study.
