By: Carlton W. Reeves, Luis Felipe Restrepo, Laura E. Mate, Claire Murray, Claria Horn Boom, John Gleeson, Candice C. Wong, Patricia K. Cushwa, and Scott A.C. Meisler

The use of cyber technologies, such as cryptocurrency and the dark web, provides new and evolving means to commit crimes and avoid detection. These technologies are used to commit a variety of federal offenses. The dark web is sometimes used to create, hide, or access websites containing child pornography. Illegal drugs and firearms are sometimes sold through dark websites. Cryptocurrency is sometimes used to facilitate these crimes. [...] Regardless of the type of crime involved, the relative anonymity these technologies provide to their users creates challenges for the investigation and prosecution of the crimes committed with them. The use of cyber technology to commit crimes transcends national borders. As Interpol has found, this causes investigative and legal challenges that can be difficult to overcome. United States government agencies, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, have reported on the increasing threats from these technologies and estimated yearly losses in the billions from the crimes committed with these technologies. There has been little analysis on the individuals sentenced for a federal offense who use these technologies for illegal purposes, the offenses they committed, and trends in these areas over time. In developing this report, the United States Sentencing Commission ('the Commission') collected information on individuals sentenced for offenses using cryptocurrency, the dark web, and hacking for fiscal years 2014 through 2021."

United States Sentencing Commission Sep. 2024

By Harjeev Kour Sudan, Andy Man Yeung Tai, Jane Kim, and Reinhard Michael Krausz

Introduction: The Dark Web is a subsection of the Internet only accessible through specific search engines, making it impossible to trace users. Due to extensive anonymity, the drug trade on the Dark Web makes regulation complicated. We sought to uncover the scope of the online drug trade on the Dark Web and the impact it may have on the dynamics of global drug trafficking.

Methods: We conducted a literature review to elucidate the availability and distribution of drugs on the Dark Web based on data reported in existing literature (n = 14) between September 2012 and June 2019. We simultaneously collected data about substances and listings from Dark Web cryptomarkets (n = 13) active between August 2022 and January 2023. Data from the literature review and the Dark Web scrape were combined to draw trends in the chronological availability and distribution of drugs between 2012 and 2023.

Results: The data collected from 13 cryptomarkets between late 2022 and early 2023 showed a relative change in substance distribution compared to 2012–2019, with a decrease in prescription drugs (from >20% to <5%) and a doubling of opioid listings (from 5.5% to 9.25%), while no major changes were observed on average during 2012–2019 according to literature.

Conclusions: The Dark Web warrants more attention in the analysis of the global drug trade. Understanding Dark Web drug markets can inform targeted interventions and strategies to reduce drug-related harms, while ongoing research is necessary to anticipate and respond to future changes in the landscape of the illicit drug trade.

Drug Science, Policy and Law Volume 9 January-December 2023

By INTERPOL

With the increase in Internet coverage, online trade of illicit goods is likely increasing on the African continent. In recent years, cyber-enabled crimes have increased on the African continent. This has been a result of a combination of factors, including, the improvement of Internet coverage, the wide availability of cyber-tools and the growing flexibility of cybercriminals. As a consequence, online crime nowadays represents a bigger security issue for law enforcement in African member countries than ever before. In this framework, INTERPOL, under the European Union funded ENACT Project, examines through this assessment the issue of cyber and cyber-enabled crimes in Africa in order to help drive a more strategic law enforcement response.

Lyon, France: INTERPOL, 2020. 79p.

By EUROPOL

Cybercrime, in its various forms, represents an increasing threat to the EU. Cyber-attacks, online child sexual exploitation, and online frauds are highly complex crimes and manifest in diverse typologies. Meanwhile the perpetrators behind these crimes are becoming increasingly agile, exploiting new situations created by geopolitical and technological changes. The Internet Organised Crime Assessment (IOCTA) is Europol’s assessment of the cybercrime landscape and how it has changed over the last 24 months. Accompanying this report will be a series of spotlight reports released later this year, each of which examines a specific crime area relating to cybercrime.

Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2023 14p.

By Marie Ouellet, David Décary-Hétu, and Andréanne Bergeron

Criminal capital theory suggests more experienced offenders receive higher returns from crime. Offenders who accrue skills over their criminal career are better able to minimize detection, increase profits, and navigate illegal markets. Yet shifts in the offending landscape to technologically-dependent crimes have led some to suggest that the skills necessary to be successful in conventional crimes no longer apply, meaning ‘traditional’ criminals may be left behind. The recent turn of drug vendors to online markets provides an opportunity to investigate whether ‘street smarts’ translate to success in technologically-dependent crimes. This study surveys 51 drug vendors on online drug markets to compare individuals who began their drug-selling career in physical drug markets with vendors whose onset began on digital platforms. The focus is on their criminal earnings while comparing the scope and management of their networks. The results inform potential spillover effects from offline drug-selling into online marketplaces.

GLOBAL CRIME. 2022, VOL. 23, NO. 1, 65p

By Tibor Kiss & Ákos Szigeti

The process of illicit drug trafficking on darknet markets is highly affected by various trust factors. Although the factors potentially affecting customers’ risk perception can be identified based on previous research, cyber criminology has not produced empirical research ranking the importance of the specific factors. This study was designed to fill this gap by developing a tool that measures the importance of the various trust factors. To test out the measurement tool, a large-scale survey with projective situational questions was conducted among university students in Hungary. The sample (n = 5481) was compiled to include potential darknet market customers, respondents with above-average computer skills needed to access the darknet, and taking into account that university students are a group of society particularly exposed to drug consumption. The end product of this research is a trust matrix ranking the factors affecting illicit drug purchases on darknet markets. Among the factors, the survey’s target group ranked reliable and undamaged delivery of goods and the reliability of vendors as the most important. The measurement tool developed in this research will facilitate further criminological research on vendor reputation. Its findings also point to the need for further research on delivery providers and predict that influencing the delivery-related risk perception of potential customers could effectively reduce demand.

May 2023 European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research

ByScott Duxbury and Dana L. Haynie

Physical, technological, and social networks are often at risk of intentional attack. Despite the wide-spanning importance of network vulnerability, very little is known about how criminal networks respond to attacks or whether intentional attacks affect criminal activity in the long-run. To assess criminal network responsiveness, we designed an empirically-grounded agent-based simulation using population-level network data on 16,847 illicit drug exchanges between 7,295 users of an active darknet drug market and statistical methods for simulation analysis. We consider three attack strategies: targeted attacks that delete structurally integral vertices, weak link attacks that delete large numbers of weakly connected vertices, and signal attacks that saturate the network with noisy signals. Results reveal that, while targeted attacks are effective when conducted at a large-scale, weak link and signal attacks deter more potential drug transactions and buyers when only a small portion of the network is attacked. We also find that intentional attacks affect network behavior. When networks are attacked, actors grow more cautious about forging ties, connecting less frequently and only to trustworthy alters. Operating in tandem, these two processes undermine long-term network robustness and increase network vulnerability to future attacks.

  PLoS ONE 15(9):  2020.  

Javeriah Saleem, Rafiqul Islam and Muhammad Ashad Kabir   

The dark web is a section of the Internet that is not accessible to search engines and requires an anonymizing browser called Tor. Its hidden network and anonymity pave the way for illegal activities and help cybercriminals to execute well-planned, coordinated, and malicious cyberattacks. Cyber security experts agree that online criminal activities are increasing exponentially, and they are also becoming more rampant and intensified. These illegal cyber activities include various destructive crimes that may target a single person or a whole nation, for example, data breaches, ransomware attacks, black markets, mafias, and terrorist attacks. So, maintaining data privacy and secrecy is the new dilemma of the era. This paper has extensively reviewed various attacks and attack patterns commonly applied in the dark web. We have also classified these attacks in our unique trilogies classification system. Furthermore, a detailed overview of existing threat detection techniques and their limitations is discussed for anonymity providing services like Tor, I2P, and Freenet. Finally, the paper has identified significant weaknesses that make the dark web vulnerable to different attacks.

 IEEE Access, vol. 10, pp. 33628-33660, 2022

By Abhineet Gupta 

The internet can broadly be divided into three parts: surface, deep and dark among which the latter offers anonymity to its users and hosts. The dark web has become notorious in the media for being a hidden part of the web where all manner of illegal activities take place. The more restrictions placed upon the free exchange of information, goods and services between people the more likely there exist hidden spaces for it to take place. The ‘black market’ of the internet – the dark web - represents such a hidden space. This review looks at the purposes it is widely used for with an emphasis on cybercrime, and how the law enforcement plays the role of its adversary. The review describes these hidden spaces, sheds light on their history, the activities that they harbour – including cybercrime, the nature of attention they receive, and methodologies employed by law enforcement in an attempt to defeat their purpose. More importantly, it is argued that these spaces should be considered a phenomenon and not an isolated occurrence to be taken as merely a natural consequence of technology. The review is conducted by looking at existing literature in academic journal databases. It contributes to the area of the dark web by serving as a reference document and by proposing a research agenda.  

Melbourne: University of Melbourne, 2018.  46p.

By INTERPOL and ENACT Africa

With the increase in Internet coverage, online trade of illicit goods is likely increasing on the African continent. In recent years, cyber-enabled crimes have increased on the African continent. This has been a result of a combination of factors, including, the improvement of Internet coverage, the wide availability of cyber-tools and the growing flexibility of cybercriminals. As a consequence, online crime nowadays represents a bigger security issue for law enforcement in African member countries than ever before. In this framework, INTERPOL, under the European Union funded ENACT Project, examines through this assessment the issue of cyber and cyber-enabled crimes in Africa in order to help drive a more strategic law enforcement response.

Lyon, France: INTERPOL; ENACT AFRICA, 2020. 79p.

By Felipe Thomas

This brief gives an overview of the online illicit wildlife trade (IWT), and analyzes the current state of this market, and speculates on its likely developments. Although there is currently very little IWT activity on the dark web, we expect this to change as enforcement steps up, and this brief explores how that process might evolve.The online market for illicit wildlife trade appears to be disaggregated and characterized by ‘blurred channels’, yet, at the same time, it is relatively ‘out in the open’, which points either to a lack of enforcement or challenges that stymie effective enforcement.However, as and when enforcement activities are stepped up, it is probable that the IWT will respond by moving along a specific pathway. This trajectory would first see a move to centralized dark-web markets, then to specialist, and smaller, dark-web ‘shops’. These market shifts would be followed by ‘markets by invitation’ and then distributed, peer-to-peer marketplaces. Under this scenario of a changing market, each step would be accompanied by a decline in market size caused by a decrease in potential consumers (and vendors), but this market loss would be counteracted by an increase in marketing efficiencies and organization on the part of the vendors.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2018. 15p.