Thus, we identified 58 opioid jargon used in the anonymous marketplaces and forums (Table 2). Combining opioid jargon with known opioid product names 25-27, we generated an opioid keyword data set consisting of 311 opioid keywords with 13 categories. We manually validated all keywords and the corresponding categories to guarantee their correctness. Dark web markets have exploded in scale and reach in 2025, becoming the most dangerous hubs for trading drugs, stolen data, and hacking tools.
STYX MarketSTYX Market, launched in 2023, is all about financial crime. It offers access to hacked bank accounts, credit card data, and cryptocurrency laundering tools. Transactions can be made using Bitcoin or Monero, and the platform keeps users in the loop through an official Telegram channel. It also requires users to verify their identity carefully to build trust with buyers focused on fraud. Brian’s Club has been around since 2014 and remains one of the most well-known credit card shops on the dark web. It sells stolen card data — dumps, CVVs, even wholesale batches — and lets users bid on fresh leaks.
Demystifying The Dark Web Opioid Trade: Content Analysis On Anonymous Market Listings And Forum Posts
It enhances buyer transparency by importing vendor feedback with PGP proof. Torzon offers a premium account option for additional benefits and is valued at approximately $15 million, accepting payments in Bitcoin (BTC) and Monero (XMR). Our team searched the dark web and put together a list of the most active dark web marketplaces in order to assist you in monitoring illegal trade of products, cybercrime activity, and dark web trends in the dark web space. As observed in our data set, the opioid suppliers in the marketplaces Evolution, Pandora, and Silk Road accepted escrow as a method of payment. In fact, the shutdown of the marketplace Evolution was discovered to be an exit scam, with the site’s operators shutting down abruptly to steal the approximately US $12 million in bitcoins that it was holding as an escrow 39. Inspired by the work 36 investigating the supplier migration phenomenon between underground marketplaces, we also evaluated the migrant suppliers who, for the first time, began to trade in a new market, m’, after the closure of marketplace m.
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We observed the same listings posted in different marketplaces and illustrate the dependency of the same opioid listings among different marketplaces. Note that we determined if 2 listings are identical by matching the same elements (ie, listing’s title and description information and the vendor’s name) in 2 listings. We observed that the marketplaces of Agora and Evolution shared 530 opioid listings from 290 unique supplier IDs.
Howell and Mower laundered the Bitcoin proceeds in primarily two ways. But don’t expect the dark web’s downtime to last, says Roman Sannikov, an analyst at security firm Recorded Future. “My guess would be the lower-tier markets just grow in prominence again,” he says. Taken together, those operations represent the most far-reaching collection of law enforcement actions against the dark web’s economy in at least two years. “You’re seeing the evolution of a coordinated law enforcement effort,” the director of Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre said.
- In this way, we generated a rich underground marketplace opioid vocabulary of 311 opioid keywords with 13 categories.
- Nemesis had over 30,000 active users and 1,000 vendors and facilitated the sale of nearly $30 million worth of drugs around the world between 2021 and 2024, including to the United States.
- Vice City listens to the problems faced by its customers and vendors and solves them so that they can keep using the platform with ease.
- We manually validated all keywords and the corresponding categories to guarantee their correctness.
- From identity theft to law enforcement surveillance, the dangers are real — and often underestimated.
Common Scams On Dark Web Marketplaces
Love hearts, lightning bolts, and pill capsules mean MDMA, or molly. Grapes and baby bottles are the calling cards for codeine-containing cough syrup, or lean. The humble maple leaf, meanwhile, is the universal symbol for all drugs. You can check the vendor’s feedback and ratings on the marketplace.
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Darknet markets operate within this hidden space, often hosting illegal activity, while the deep web primarily consists of everyday private or password-protected content. Even passive activity on these sites can contribute to criminal networks. For instance, buying fake documents may indirectly support larger operations involving trafficking, extortion, or organized crime.
Finding Drugs (and People To Use Them With) On Dating Apps
Articles from Journal of Medical Internet Research are provided here courtesy of JMIR Publications Inc. Note that data for 2020 only included data from January to March; price per gram is in US $. Russian private military contractor Wagner is busy boosting its brand as its fighters try to subdue Ukraine, trading secrecy for war propaganda movies. Investigators received leads from local police departments investigating overdose deaths, including that of a 19-year-old man in Colorado who loved learning languages and building his own computers, according to FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate.
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However, the dark web is so complex and vast that if law enforcement takes down one market, it pops up elsewhere. For instance, after the closure of Genesis Market, its website came back after a few weeks. If someone has the market’s code to the infrastructure, no matter how much effort law enforcement puts in, it will keep coming back on another server or can be built again with the same branding. As mentioned earlier, launching a cyberattack doesn’t require any hacking skills. Even people with zero technical knowledge can buy phishing kits, ransomware, or stolen logins. Like ransomware, criminals can buy software and inject your devices with viruses.
Despite the efforts of law enforcement, the dark web continues to thrive. To buy drugs on the darknet, you’ll need to have some knowledge of hacking and the anonymous Tor browser. The opioid buyer (client) will also access the anonymous online market and create an account in each anonymous marketplace before they can find the listings of opioids (step 4). After perusing the items available on the anonymous online market (step 5), the buyer will add opioids to their shopping cart (step 6).
After one too many experiences with this joke of a drug, I decided to look for a new source. I’ve heard from friends and drug-user forums alike that dark-web drugs tend to be of better quality, and that buying in this way reduces some risks. While buying drugs from the dark web may seem like an option for some, it is fraught with risks and consequences. Engaging in illegal activities is never advisable, and one should always consider the implications of their actions.
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Even if they know someone who accesses the dark web and gets the drugs, the drugs get distributed among the other teens. The teenage drug dealers maintain secrecy while they trade illegal drugs on the campus and make regular deals that would fetch them some extra bucks and lend them the opportunity to acquire more drugs. Transactions on the darknet are typically anonymous, with buyers and sellers using pseudonyms to protect their identities. However, there are still risks involved, as law enforcement agencies have become increasingly sophisticated in their ability to track and monitor darknet activity. The cycle Christin describes—law enforcement takedowns followed by a slow but robust recovery—has played out on the dark web again and again, repeating roughly every year or two.
Particularly, as shown in Table 8, the United States and the United Kingdom are always in the top 5 advertised origins among years. Most darknet markets have processes for dispute resolution, but recourse is often limited. Users may be identified through various means, including payment methods and IP addresses, despite using anonymizing tools. The former vanished in March 2015 with $12m-worth of customers’ bitcoin in an “exit scam”.
