The number of malicious tools, or “drainers,” designed to steal cryptocurrency assets like tokens and NFTs saw a substantial rise. Unique threads discussing drainers on dark web forums increased from 55 in 2022 to 129 in 2024, with Telegram channels serving as prominent hubs for these activities. Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study. Finally, just as scammers go on the dark net posing as buyers, so too can the police. People have also gotten caught when advertising or bragging about their trade on the public internet.
Cypher Marketplace
Here are some of the now-defunct dark web markets that were notorious for cybercrime. Dark web markets have exploded in scale and reach in 2025, becoming the most dangerous hubs for trading drugs, stolen data, and hacking tools. These anonymous marketplaces—operating mainly on the Tor network—are now a primary threat vector for businesses and cybersecurity professionals.
As a result, law enforcement has adopted an intelligence-led enforcement strategy incorporating DNM takedowns into longer-term investigations rather than treating them as end goals. In late June 2025, users began reporting withdrawal issues with Abacus Market, which typically indicates an impending exit scam. The marketplace’s administrator, known as ‘Vito’, responded on darkweb discussion forum Dread, claiming an influx of Archetyp users and a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack were the reasons for the issues.
Torzon Market
RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business – Artwork ‘Sentient’ by Hollie Johnson, Gunaikurnai and Monero Ngarigo. The first edition of Enabling Impact – an annual report showcasing the diverse strategic research and research impact achievements enabled by the university’s Enabling Impact Platforms – has just been unveiled. RMIT and Deakin universities are working with Barwon Water to create valuable agricultural and manufacturing products out of common waste streams. “Australia’s resistance to opening more drug checking facilities stems from an assumption that drug checking ‘green lights’ drug use,” Barratt said. “These takedowns are used to create a sense of general deterrence through announcing arrests and interruptions to markets,” she said. Of the 19 cocaine samples tested, only four were pure cocaine while 13 contained other substances and two samples did not contain any cocaine at all.
Popular Searches
It has also meant most new Western darknet marketplaces are generally low-effort projects, such as 3DogsMarket, Drugula Market and Squid Market, built using scripts and beset by security flaws, with the sole aim of generating quick profits before disappearing. TRM Labs analysis shows that nearly half of the marketplaces launched in 2024 accepted only Monero — a sharp increase from just over one-third in 2023. This signals a growing preference among darknet operators for obfuscation and anti-surveillance tools. Cryptocurrency-enabled drug sales also grew by over 19% from 2023 to 2024, reaching nearly USD 2.4 billion in volume. During the same period, the number of newly launched darknet marketplaces declined 42% year over year — indicating that while the ecosystem is consolidating, remaining actors may be becoming more operationally advanced.
Popular Australian Darknet Markets
Such companies’ tools enable investigators to trace administrator wallets and follow illicit flows even after a marketplace goes offline. TRM will continue to closely monitor the evolving DNM landscape, including emerging platforms, vendor migration patterns, and on-chain activity, to support efforts to disrupt illicit actors and safeguard the broader crypto ecosystem. Even as major darknet platforms fall, TRM Labs data shows that the ecosystem remains highly adaptive. Following the 2022 shutdown of Hydra Market, TRM identified new Russian-language darknet markets emerging that by 2024 accounted for more than 97% of global darknet drug revenues.
Classic darknet markets sell diverse illegal goods; data stores focus on leaked or stolen data like credentials, databases, and ID records. Australia is a leading country in the darknet drugs trade, with more online drug vendors per capita than any other nation except the Netherlands, according to research presented at this week’s Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association Conference. Judging by that buzzing trade, there’s little hint that just the week before, global law enforcement announced the takedowns of two of the world’s largest dark-web drug sites, known as Wall Street Market and Valhalla. Or that the most popular market, called Dream, had taken itself offline at the end of last month, perhaps sensing law enforcement closing in.
Access Our Coverage Of TRON, Solana And 23 Other Blockchains
These findings indicate that the prices of Australian darknet drugs are much more closely correlated to local street prices than they are to those sold by foreign vendors. Only methamphetamine was significantly cheaper when purchased from an Australian cryptomarket vendor compared to a local street dealer, with prices approximately 45% lower when sourced online. Australians are increasingly using eBay-style darknet marketplaces or cryptomarkets to buy and sell illicit drugs. As a result, we are seeing people who would never have considered selling drugs on the street getting involved in illegal online drug sales.
Market Composition And Price
Established in 2022, Torzon market is one of the biggest and most diverse marketplaces on the dark web. It is considered very secure thanks to strict user validations and transparent payment and vendor review procedures. Are you curious about the use of tools like TOR and their legality in Australia?
“There’s no age restriction on illegal drugs, there have been cases and in fact fatal overdoses, from kids buying drugs online. Those dangers won’t recede.” Law enforcement shutdowns are also only one type of disruption that dark web communities face. Dark web market users routinely face voluntary closures (the gradual retirement of a market), exit scams (sudden closures of markets where any money in escrow is taken), or even scheduled maintenance of these markets. Learn how to automate financial risk reports using AI and news data with this guide for product managers, featuring tools from Webz.io and OpenAI. One of the most prominent cases regarding the darknet in Australia is the arrest of a man from Queensland for running the DarkMarket. In 2019, German police arrested the 34-year-old father near the German-Danish border.
Most Viewed In National
Agora was unaffected by Operation Onymous, an international crackdown from November 2014 where authorities shut down several major online dark markets, most notably Silk Road. While drug checking services have been operating around the world for over 50 years, Barratt said Australia remained resistant to expanding the harm-reduction service. Currently, CanTEST is the only drug checking service available in Australia, with Queensland due to launch its own services this year and Victoria considering following suit. Products sold as ketamine, 2C-B and alprazolam were most likely to be completely substituted with other substances or new synthetic drugs, which increased the risk of unwanted side effects, potential overdose or death.
- In addition, we work with government agencies to coordinate responses on current and emerging drug issues from Australian Government law enforcement.
- Prior to, but in support of Operation Dark HunTor, Italian authorities also shut down the DeepSea and Berlusconi dark web marketplaces which boasted over 40,000 advertisements of illegal products.
- We may also see collaborations between state-sponsored gangs, pooling resources for more devastating attacks.
- Using TOR, like using other web browsers for online tasks, is legal in the country.
- The “within country share and change” columns of the table present the within country longitudinal analysis of the market activity restricted to within each country as modelled through the smoothed regression technique outlined above.
Global Drug Survey: Cocaine Now Being Delivered Faster Than Pizza
But it is hackers demanding ransom money, not police, that’s the main worry for those operating DNMs, says Patrick Shortis. “The biggest source of disruption to markets is currently coming from the ongoing distributed denial of service DDOS attacks that have knocked markets and forums offline intermittently over the last few months,” he says. Previous DNM admins who either voluntarily exited, such as ASAP Market, Agora Market, and WhiteHouseMarket, or conducted exit scams, such as Evolution Market, while at the top of the ecosystem have yet to be apprehended by law enforcement. Abacus becoming the largest Bitcoin-enabled Western DNM may have inadvertently led to its closure. Marketplaces that reach the top of the ecosystem, in terms of volume, user base, listings, and reputation, often become priority targets for law enforcement.
WhatsApp 0-Day Vulnerability Exploited To Hack Mac And IOS Users
The National Drug Strategy 2017–2026 outlines the Australian Government’s approach to illicit drugs policy. The Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care administers this strategy. These figures represent only a snapshot of the larger industry, with at least 10 other marketplaces active on the Dark Web, a network of anonymous sites that hide the identity of the creators and their IP (internet protocol) addresses. The news.com.au analysis found that Australia’s top dealer, “TheProfessionals”, has an estimated total income of $3.3 million selling about $824,266 worth of drugs a month.
JCODE also targets the trafficking of weapons and other illicit goods and services on the internet. Categorisation is based on the British National Formulary legacy hierarchical categorisation system. This classifies prescription medications according to their main indication or intended use in UK medical (not specifically psychiatric) practice.
Queensland’s capital city, Brisbane, had a much lower average consumption of nicotine and other drugs. Another example of the biggest Australian state with drug problems is Victoria. Sydney, the capital city of New South Wales, held the record for the second-highest consumption of heroin. Various capital cities throughout Australia have high levels of drug and alcohol consumption. Below are some of the most notable areas and the most-abused drugs consumed in them. Forty percent of the peers around the globe are in Australia, the US, Russia, France, England, and Canada.
