Unlike many dark web platforms that vanish quickly, Archetyp’s five-year longevity demonstrated the resilience and adaptability of darknet markets. However, this resilience also underscores the critical role of law enforcement in disrupting illegal economies that operate under layers of anonymity. Hampton was named in an 11-count indictment that charges him with various narcotics and weapons offenses that could result in a sentence of life in prison. According to court documents, he was active on at least nine darknet marketplaces where he typically used the moniker “Narco710.” Hampton allegedly sold nearly $2 million worth of narcotics on two of these darknet marketplaces alone.
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We used VOSviewer 46,47 to create a visualization of the keyword co-occurrence network. Our unit of analysis was “index keywords.” We extracted a total of 5155 index keywords from the dataset, and 55 keywords met the inclusion criterion when the minimum number of keyword occurrences was set to 15. We also carefully used the VOSviewer thesaurus feature to merge synonyms of certain keywords into a single term. All of these criteria were helpful for reducing the number of keywords in the network, the number of clusters, and the complexity of the network while maintaining the quality of the interpretation. After applying these criteria, VOSviewer generated a visualization with four distinct clusters (Fig. 5) and Table 5 shows the top keywords in each cluster. A keyword co-occurrence network focuses on understanding the knowledge components and knowledge structure of a scientific/technical field by examining the links between keywords in the literature.
From Silk Road To RapTor: The Evolution Of Darknet Markets
There are strong linkages between peace and inequalities (SDG 16 and 10) and peace and good health (SDG 16 and 3), highlighting the centrality of SDG 16. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in collaboration with Europol, the Joint Criminal Opioid and Darknet Enforcement Team, and various national and international partners, announced the results of Operation RapTOR May 22. This takedown, led by Europol, resulted in the highest number of seizures in JCODE’s history. The Dutch national police’s Cyber Enabled Crime Team was involved in the operation, code-named SpecTor. One defendant in California led an organization that bought fentanyl in bulk, pressed it with methamphetamine into pills and sold millions of them to thousands of people on the dark web, he said.
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Ta and Srinivasan admitted in their plea agreements to causing the fentanyl overdose deaths of three victims. Both defendants further admitted to distributing fentanyl-laced pills to two additional victims, both of whom suffered fatal drug overdoses shortly after they received the pills from Ta and Srinivasan. In January of 2022 the Justice Department arrested four defendants in connection with an investigation targeting a domestic firearm trafficking organization that supplied weapons and ammunition to the Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación. According to UNODC, most of the drugs sold in the darknet ship from North America and Europe. The most common country of origin or country of shipment from greatest to least were listed as the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Australia, and Canada. 47-year-old Rushan Lavar Reed and 28-year-old Celeste Nicole Reed were participating in a long-term trafficking conspiracy that illegally distributed ‘pharmacy grade, not homemade pressed pills,’ according to the U.S.
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- Bibliometric analysis serves as a method to discern patterns, themes, and shifts within a particular realm of research.
- Some sites will simply sate that their stealth precautions are robust and therefore good for the buyers but – but do not publicly more details.
- Pacific island States have transformed from solely transit sites along drug trafficking routes to destination markets for synthetic drugs.
- At the same time, financial enforcers like OFAC sanctioned individuals running darknet markets—including Iranian national Behrouz Parsarad of Nemesis—demonstrating how financial tools are being brought into alignment with traditional law enforcement.
- Silk Road popularized the use of Bitcoin, anonymizing technologies like Tor, and vendor reputation systems.
Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) and the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office investigated the case. Today, the Department of Justice, through the Joint Criminal Opioid and Darknet Enforcement (JCODE) team joined Europol to announce the results of Operation Dark HunTor, a coordinated international effort on three continents to disrupt opioid trafficking on the Darknet. The operation, which was conducted across the United States, Australia, and Europe, was a result of the continued partnership between JCODE and foreign law enforcement against the illegal sale of drugs and other illicit goods and services. Operation Dark HunTor builds on the success of last year’s Operation DisrupTor and the coordinated law enforcement takedown earlier this year of DarkMarket, the world’s then-largest illegal marketplace on the Darknet. At the time, German authorities arrested the marketplace’s alleged operator and seized the site’s infrastructure, providing investigators across the world with a trove of evidence.
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The shift to digital markets has also reshaped the way illicit substances are bought, sold and distributed. Online platforms, for example, encourage bulk purchasing, setting them apart from offline markets, where such transactions are difficult to coordinate and easier to detect. Darknet vendors are also becoming more sophisticated, with large sellers offering a wider range of products and focusing on high value transactions. Data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime shows that while the number of marketplaces is decreasing, the average transaction size is rising, indicating growing wholesale activity. According to the study, most darknet sales in 2023 fell into the ‘large retail’ category (US$100–US$499), at 37.8%, followed by ‘potential wholesale’ purchases (over US$1 000) at 31.9%.
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This highlights the diverse methods being employed by traffickers to distribute illegal substances. The NCB has been closely tracking cryptocurrency payments linked to the purchase of narcotics as part of its broader strategy to curb drug trafficking in the country. All the defendants are charged with one count of conspiracy to distribute fentanyl and cocaine, two counts of distribution of fentanyl, and one count of distribution of cocaine. Soto and Blacano are expected to make their initial appearances today in United States District Court in downtown Los Angeles.
Anderson and his co-conspirators then delivered from San Fernando Valley stash houses packages containing drugs to post offices throughout the Los Angeles area for shipment to their customers nationwide. For example, in August 2018, Anderson and a co-conspirator knowingly distributed heroin to a victim in Knoxville, Tennessee whose death resulted from using the heroin. COLUMBUS, Ohio – A Columbus man pleaded guilty in federal court here today to federal dogfighting and drug crimes.
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“Our coalition of law enforcement authorities across three continents proves that we all do better when we work together,” said Executive Director Catherine De Bolle of Europol. The Washington-based Wilson Center has warned over the presence of thousands of extremist groups’ websites on the darknet, including neo-Nazis, and white supremacists. Their investigation led them to arrest a total of 288 people across the world on May 2, with 153 in the US alone, which is currently in the grips of an opioid crisis that is killing thousands. “Selective targeting works and our analysis makes it clear that a sizable portion of the darknet users are deterred by the arrest of major vendors on darknet sites,” says co-author Andrew Whinston of the University of Texas at Austin. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data. This prosecution is part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) investigation.
District Court to 188 months in federal prison in connection with possessing 180 videos and 560 images depicting the sexual… Emily Gabriella Sommer, 32, of the District of Columbia, pleaded guilty today to three counts of assaulting a government official, in connection with a May 8 incident during which she… Lin’s undoing came in May 2024, when he was arrested while transiting through New York’s JFK Airport. He later pleaded guilty to narcotics conspiracy, money laundering, and conspiracy to sell adulterated and misbranded medications in the Southern District of New York. Designed to resemble a legitimate e-commerce platform, Incognito offered a slick user experience with branding, advertising, and customer support.
They used darknet markets, including Monopoly, Versus, ASAP, AlphaBay, Wall Street, Archetyp, Bohemia, Empire, Dream and White House. According to court documents, for six years, the married couple operated an online storefront called “MrsFeelGood” to illegally distribute a variety of narcotics across the United States. Rushan and Celeste each pleaded guilty on Oct. 22, 2024, to conspiracy to distribute oxycodone, hydrocodone and amphetamine. In addition to the prison, the judge ordered the couple to serve three years of supervised release. Also, in March 2019, in a Glendale apartment, Anderson and other co-conspirators possessed methamphetamine, heroin, and cocaine for distribution to darknet customers, according to the U.S. In addition to monitoring, Rai emphasised that various preventive measures are in place, with the newly formed task force playing a crucial role in overseeing and analyzing suspicious transactions to prevent drug trafficking.
The report further underscores the severe social impacts of this model on Russian society, particularly among young people. Youth are drawn into this high-tech drug economy, often working as couriers or “kladmen” for online shops—a job that comes with high risks, including violence, criminal charges, and addiction. Violence has become endemic in the system, with enforcers, known as “sportsmen,” meting out harsh punishments for couriers suspected of theft or negligence. This pervasive violence, combined with the easy availability of highly addictive synthetic drugs, is fueling a public health crisis and contributing to rising incarceration rates among young Russians. Ta pleaded guilty in August 2023 to one count of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances and is serving a prison sentence of 260 months (21 years and eight months).
Operation RapTor was a global, coordinated effort by law enforcement in the United States, Europe, South America, and Asia to disrupt fentanyl and opioid trafficking, as well as the sales of other illicit goods and services, on the darknet, or dark web. Operation RapTor builds on the successes of prior years’ operations and takedowns of marketplaces, which resulted in the seizure of darknet infrastructure from Nemesis, Tor2Door, Bohemia, and Kingdom Markets, providing investigators across the world with investigative leads and evidence. JCODE and Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) continue to compile intelligence packages to identify entities of interest.
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The paper is a systematic guide for addiction professionals on the deep web and online drug marketplaces. Aside from drugs, illegal wildlife trade also happens on the Darkweb, although the extent of such trade is lower than the open trade on the surface web. One such study 26 found one case of illegal trade related to wildlife related to the sale and discussion of a cactus species used for its hallucinogenic properties. The work discusses the ineffectiveness of enforcement against illegal wildlife trade and the need for more efforts. Operation RapTor resulted in the highest number of seizures of any JCODE operation, including more than $200 million in currency and digital assets, over two metric tons of drugs, 144 kilograms of fentanyl or fentanyl-laced narcotics, and over 180 firearms. Operation SpecTor was a collaborative initiative across JCODE members, including the Department of Justice, FBI, DEA, USPIS, HSI, IRS-CI, ATF, Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), and the FDA’s Office of Criminal Investigations.
