Darknet markets have long been a haven for illegal activities, offering a platform for buying and selling drugs, weapons, stolen data, and other illicit goods. In recent years, law enforcement agencies around the world have been ramping up their efforts to crack down on these underground online marketplaces.
The rise and challenge of dark net drug markets
In the face of increasing law enforcement activities, cyber criminals are increasing their security accordingly rather than exiting the cybercrime business. In the course of its investigation, FinCEN also found that Bitzlato has taken few meaningful steps to identify and disrupt illicit use and abuse of its services. Bitzlato does not effectively implement policies and procedures designed to combat money laundering and illicit finance, and has advertised a lack of such policies, procedures, or internal controls. As a result, Bitzlato facilitates a substantially greater proportion of money laundering activity in connection with Russian illicit finance compared to other virtual currency exchanges. Bitzlato’s continued facilitation of Russia-connected darknet markets, even after public action targeting darknet markets, further illustrates its ongoing engagement with illicit actors and lack of adequate controls. As described in the order, effective February 1, 2023, covered financial institutions are prohibited from engaging in a transmittal of funds from or to Bitzlato, or from or to any account or CVC address administered by or on behalf of Bitzlato.
Collaboration Across Borders
The threat of crime displacement
- In 2019, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) replicated their Surface Website (cia.gov) on the Tor network, including the agency’s public announcements, the World Factbook, and careers page all available reportedly via ‘secure and anonymous’ web connections.
- In the wake of Hydra market’s collapse in 2022, new markets quickly swooped in to try and replace it.
- While it is unknown how those who completed the questionnaire differ from those who filled it out partially, shortening the questionnaire in future fielding is advised.
- We don’t yet have confirmation of OMG offering money laundering services, but again, the on-chain data suggests it likely does.
MORE ON CYBERSECURITY
With the anonymous nature of the dark web making it difficult to track down perpetrators, many police agencies have joined forces to combat this growing threat. From the FBI in the United States to Europol in Europe, there is a coordinated effort to dismantle these criminal networks.
The Numbers Game
Card-not-present fraud: using crime scripts to inform crime prevention initiatives
Marketplaces meeting these criteria were identified by consulting marketplace directories, websites that list active markets on the darkweb and the onion.links to access them. These websites provide a valuable resource for vendors and buyers to identify up-to-date information on markets, including their links, as markets may switch their onion.link in efforts to elude law enforcement or other hostile actors. In addition, marketplaces were located by consulting popular forums on the darkweb for discussions of new markets. Digital records from each marketplace were then compiled into a structured database using web-scraping and parsing tools that extracted all publicly available product listings, and vendor profiles pertaining to stolen data items (Wu et al. 2019). Our final sample comprises 17 markets, 979 unique vendor aliases, and 221,094 product listings over an approximately 12-week period from 15 November 2020, to 9 February 2021.
So, just how many police agencies are going after darknet markets? While it’s hard to pinpoint an exact number, it’s safe to say that **multiple** agencies from different countries are actively involved in this fight. These include national police forces, cybercrime units, and specialized task forces dedicated to tackling online crimes.
Crime types and cases
It’s not just the big players like the FBI or Europol getting in on the action – even smaller local law enforcement agencies are stepping up their efforts to combat darknet markets within their jurisdictions. This level of collaboration and cooperation is crucial in successfully taking down these illegal operations.
“Researchers will typically create fake personas tailored to the site they’re looking to access—this is where language skills and the ability to assimilate into fringe communities are essential,” he adds. With the right tools, online habits, and safety measures, you can make yourself a much harder target for identity thieves and online scammers. That’s why the defense is the best offense, so it’s worthwhile to be leveraging a service that monitors your personal data for you. To find out if your information is leaked on the Dark Web — you can rely on Aura’s identity theft protection service.
One Europol official, commenting on this phenomenon, observed that ‘[vendors] don’t just operate on one market, they cover the full spectrum of the dark web’ (Barrett 2020). Consistent with this observation, scholars have documented large numbers of vendors selling their products across multiple marketplaces (Décary-Hétu and Giommoni 2017; Ladegaard 2019; 2020; Norbutas et al. 2020). The AlphaBay takedown involved officials from six countries and Europol, led by the American authorities. The Dutch police led the takedown of Hansa Market, but both efforts were coordinated under the code name Operation Bayonet. It was not the first time that the United States and European authorities worked together on online black markets. Dubbed “Operation Cookie Monster,” the takedown involved the United States FBI, along with law enforcement agencies from the United Kingdom, Europe, Australia, Canada, Germany, Poland, and Sweden.
In conclusion, the hunt for darknet markets involves a **multitude** of police agencies working together to disrupt and dismantle these criminal enterprises. With the rise of technology and the increasing sophistication of online crimes, it’s clear that law enforcement agencies must continue to adapt and evolve in order to keep up with the ever-changing landscape of cybercrime.
