These anonymous marketplaces—operating mainly on the Tor network—are now a primary threat vector for businesses and cybersecurity professionals. The Hidden Wiki is a longstanding directory of dark web sites that offers a way to browse onion services. It’s been around for many years and helps users navigate the dark web by curating links to various resources. Note that Hidden Wiki links sometimes lead to unsafe content, so be wary about what you click. Last week, one of the dark web’s most prominent drug marketplaces—Archetyp—was shut down in an international, multi-agency law enforcement operation following years of investigations.
Torzon Market
The judge said it was clear from the evidence that the offending coincided with a particularly low point in his life and an overall deterioration of his well-being, which had led to heavy use of cannabis. In one case, the FBI contacted gardai in West Cork about a person accessing a dark web site related to the exploitation of children. In another case, a college student admitted importing more than €4,000 worth of cannabis from the United States after purchasing it online using The Dark Web. The Government and the HSE confirmed then that as a result of the ransomware cyberattack, sensitive patient data stolen by cybercriminals was likely to appear on The Dark Web.
The Global Organized Crime Index 2023
- In Grand Theft Auto Online, players who purchase warehouses and garages for illicit cargo and stolen cars can buy/steal and sell them through trade on the “SecuroServ” syndicate website.
- Initial studies into drug sales on social media began to be published in 2012.
- The US Department of Justice has claimed that his narcotics charge is the most serious of his three offences and in America there is a minimum sentence of 10 years handed down to those found guilty of illegally selling narcotics.
- By connecting with vendors worldwide, consumers can access drugs that were previously unavailable locally.
“With the spike in opioid-related overdose deaths during the Covid-19 pandemic, we recognise that today’s announcement is important and timely,” said FBI director Christopher Wray. Of those arrested 119 were based in the US, two in Canada, 42 in Germany, eight in the Netherlands, four in the UK, three in Austria and one in Sweden. Has worked as a journalist around the world, including in Lebanon and in Cambodia, where he was Deputy Managing Editor of The Phnom Penh Post. More than €8 million ($8.75 million) in virtual assets were seized during the arrests, police said.
Compared to its predecessors, Archetyp enforced enhanced security expectations from its users. These included an advanced encryption program known as “Pretty Good Privacy” and a cryptocurrency called Monero. Unlike Bitcoin, which records every payment on a public ledger, Monero conceals all transaction details by default, which makes them nearly impossible to trace. CFISA was formed by a group of academics, security and fraud experts to explore ways to increase security awareness among audiences, including consumers, employees, businesses and law enforcement. A man from Nagytarcsa, a town near the Hungarian capital city of Budapest, has been apprehended by Hungarian police with assistance from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation for allegedly selling drugs internationally on the dark web. By offering so many options, these sites also just make it easier for psychonauts to explore what’s out there.
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- In less than 30 minutes I have graduated from someone whose most radical internet purchase was teeth whitening strips to someone searching for listings for benzodiazepines, ketamines and cocaine.
- Through these channels, he engaged in the sale of controlled substances, which included fentanyl, LSD, ecstasy, Xanax, ketamine, and tramadol.
- Based on our observations from analysis on dark web data using Lunar, we’ve identified the top 7 marketplaces on the dark web in 2025.
- It had more than 600,000 users worldwide and 17,000 listings consisting mainly of illicit drugs including MDMA, cocaine and methamphetamine.
- A Southern California duo face federal sentencing for selling tens of thousands of fentanyl-laced pills and cocaine on the dark web, causing the death of at least one teenager.
Silk Road 2.0 was launched soon after the original Silk Road was seized and since that time there has been a proliferation of darknet markets.. The shutdown of Archetyp, a major dark web drug market, demonstrates that law enforcement takedowns have only short-term effects, as such markets quickly re-emerge and adapt. Persistent trade and resilient user communities limit the long-term impact of these interventions. Focusing solely on dark web markets may overlook broader digital harms occurring on mainstream platforms. 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.
Finnish Customs Shut Down The Tor Darknet Marketplace Sipulitie And Seized The Servers Hosting The Platform
Police are getting better at targeting operations on the dark web – a part of the internet that is accessible only through specialised tools. This latest raid follows the takedown of the Wall Street market last year, which was then thought to be the second-largest illegal online market on the dark web. The market went offline at the end of last year when, according to police, the administrators carried out an “exit scam,” stealing users’ money and divvying it up among themselves.
Dutch Authorities Takendown World’s Largest Dark Web Market
He wanted to be able to buy high-quality psychedelics from a trusted, reliable source and the dark web seemed like the best place to do so. A 14-year-old boy accused of trying to buy a Russian sub-machine gun and 100 rounds of ammunition on the ‘dark web’ left school at break time for a meet-up in a Co Derry retail park, a court has heard. Two Co Antrim men have pleaded guilty to involvement in a plot to buy guns over the ‘dark web’, unaware they were dealing with undercover police. At a previous sentencing hearing, Judge Melanie Greally indicated she was “not completely opposed” to imposing section 100 of the Criminal Justice Act 2006.
Customers paid with cryptocurrency for drugs ordered from Singh using the vendor sites. Singh then personally shipped or arranged the shipment of the drugs from Europe to the United States through U.S. mail or other shipping services. 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.
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The law enforcement operation is the latest attempt to curb cybercrime and crack down on online marketplaces. German police seized the infrastructure of a similar marketplace called Nemesis in March, four months after taking down the illicit emporium Kingdom Market. The first darknet market of notoriety was Silk Road, which opened at the end of January 2011 and was seized by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in October 2013 (DEA, 2013).
While the Tor browser boosts privacy, pairing it with a VPN adds a critical layer of security. ProPublica is an investigative news site owned by an independent nonprofit that exposes abuses of power and corruption. It hosts an onion site so people in countries with restricted press freedom can access its journalism, which covers everything from hacktivism to government repression. While removing your sensitive data from hacker forums is almost impossible, a dark web monitoring service, like the one included in Norton 360 Deluxe, can help notify you if your information is found, letting you take steps to protect your identity. As reported by PTI, Singh was arrested in London in April at the request of the US.
The student, originally from Co Cork, told gardaí he intended to smoke or bake the more than €4,000 of cannabis and admitted to ordering drugs online on three previous occasions, but denied being a drug dealer. Mark Kennedy, head of residential and counselling services at the Merchant’s Quay project, says “steroid users would now account for around 350 individuals accessing our services”. Freshtools is a unique marketplace in that it does not only provide the stolen data, but it allows criminals to purchase MaaS which can cause further damage to the victims.
PSafe is a leading provider of mobile privacy, security, and performance apps. We deliver innovative products that protect your freedom to safely connect, share, play, express and explore online. Option3 (formerly Option3Ventures – O3V) primarily seek control investments in the growing cybersecurity mid-market, seeking to build champions with the scale to bring cutting-edge products to market. Assuria Cyber Security solutions provide protective monitoring of systems and user activity across the whole IT infrastructure.
