While some of these markets were shuttered by law enforcement agencies – some took the easy way out with exit scams. Here are some of the now-defunct dark web markets that were notorious for cybercrime. Others are looking for stolen data, hacking services, or even banned books and political content. For sellers, it’s often about making money while staying off the radar.
Feds Dismantled The Dark-Web Drug Trade—but It’s Already Rebuilding
Only four Russian-language DNMs left the approximately 20-strong ecosystem in 2024. The departure of market leaders such as Solaris Market — which ceased operations in autumn 2024 — is a rare occurrence. Since its inception in 2018, JCODE investigations have resulted in the arrest of more than 300 darknet drug traffickers, as well as the seizure of more than $42 million in drug-tainted proceeds, over 800 kilograms of narcotics, and approximately 145 firearms. SANTA ANA, California – An Orange County man and South Los Angeles man were sentenced today to federal prison for supplying fentanyl-laced pills to a drug trafficking ring that sold these drugs to more than 1,000 customers nationwide via the dark web. One of the central76 discussion forums was Reddit’s /r/DarkNetMarkets/,777879 which has been the subject of legal investigation, as well as the Tor-based discussion forum, The Hub.
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- For example, the ample in-person supply of MDMA in the Netherlands may drive the differences observed between cryptomarket and offline sources.
- Just as there are new entrants, the dark web has its veteran markets too, and Brian’s Club is one such market.
- Some markets are invite-only or have strict registration rules to keep out scammers and law enforcement.
- Another reason the Russian Market is so popular is that it’s pretty inexpensive compared to other dark web marketplaces.
- This dramatic increase may reflect the decentralization of the drug trade away from traditional darknet markets, as vendors grow more adept at operating across multiple platforms on both the clearnet and darknet — including e-commerce websites and social media platforms.
- Purchasing drugs online also eliminates the danger posed by traveling in possession of illegal substances.
Freshtools was established in 2019 and offers various stolen credentials, accounts, and host protocols like RDP. It is considered a go-to site for malware purchasing, providing keyloggers, trojans, and other Malware as a Service products. Established in 2022, WizardShop is one of the biggest data stores on the dark web, focusing mainly on carding and financial data. Its focus on financial fraud and high-value transactions has attracted a dedicated user base, contributing to its growing reputation and market value. This page may contain sensitive or adult content that’s not for everyone.
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. One of the key factors driving this shift is the increased focus on security.
Inspector General Sites
Considering social media data (eg, Twitter and Instagram), Nasralah et al 14 proposed a text mining framework to collect opioid data from social media and analyzed the most discussed topics to profile the opioid epidemic and crisis. Mackey et al 13 collected tweets related to the opioid topic to identify illicit online pharmacies and study the illegal sale of opioids in online marketing. Cherian et al 12 gathered codeine misuse data from Instagram posts to understand how misuse is happening and its misused form. However, to the best of our knowledge, no large-scale study, which may cross multiple anonymous marketplaces and is cross-sectional, has been conducted to profile the opioid supply chain and unveil characteristics of opioid suppliers, commodities, and transactions. First, we designed and implemented an anonymous marketplace data collection and analysis pipeline to gather and identify opioids data in 16 anonymous marketplaces and forums over a period of almost 9 years between 2011 and 2020.
Torzon Market
It contains 40,000+ listings for illegal products (mostly) and is worth an estimated $15 million, so it’s one of the largest markets out there. Now that you understand what the dark web is all about, you might wonder why other people do things on it. Darknet marketplaces like to exist on the dark web because it offers a service that the regular internet, or more accurately, the “surface web,” does not.
- Some use them due to privacy concerns, such as journalists talking to informants or whistleblowers, while others may simply want to protect their confidential information from observation or tracking.
- To facilitate these financial transactions, Incognito Market had its own “bank,” which allowed its users to deposit cryptocurrency on the site into their own accounts.
- However, the darknet’s elusive nature means some data on users and exact sales volumes could be underreported.
- Heroin, opium, cocaine, acid, prescription drugs are all readily available.
- They want to use these hard-earned dollars of theirs that they got committing financial crimes, and they want to go lounge on a beach somewhere while we’re waiting for them,” Henderson said.
According to TRM Labs, Incognito launched in October 2020 and remained active until March 2024. In that time, it facilitated more than USD 100 million in drug sales, including hundreds of kilograms of cocaine and methamphetamine, alongside heroin, LSD, MDMA, oxycodone, ketamine, and misbranded prescription drugs. Srinivasan operated the account “redlightlabs” on multiple darknet marketplaces, including the site “Dark0de.” Srinivasan and Ta used the redlightlabs account to advertise and sell counterfeit M30 oxycodone pills containing fentanyl and other illicit drugs. The closure of Archetyp Market will likely trigger a temporary disruption in darknet drug supply chains, but it won’t end darknet drug trafficking altogether.
Archived Content
Its commitment to privacy, diverse product offerings, and robust security measures make it a preferred choice for users seeking discreet transactions within the darknet. Established in 2019, Russian Market is a well-known and highly regarded data store on the dark web, specializing in the sale of PII and various forms of stolen data. Despite its name, the marketplace operates primarily in English and serves a global audience. It has gained a reputation for being a reliable source of high-quality data for cybercriminals.
Market Features
HugBunter, the anonymous user who founded the forum in 2018, asked “market admins, vendors, and other service operators” to provide “proof-of-life” by signing posts with what’s known as a PGP encrypted signature, a form of cryptographic proof. From June 11 to 13, the agency said, a series of coordinated law enforcement actions targeting the platform’s administrator, moderators, key vendors and technical infrastructure took place across Germany, the Netherlands, Romania, Spain and Sweden. “Waste your resources on seizing petty websites because they know the use of darknet services is ever growing,” another user wrote. Founded in 2014, BriansClub remains one of the oldest and most infamous dark web markets for stolen credit cards, fullz (complete identity kits), and dumps. The seized drugs included 141 pounds of fentanyl or fentanyl-laced narcotics, more than 569 pounds of amphetamines, 95 pounds of cocaine, 95 pounds of MDMA and 22 pounds of LSD and ecstasy pills, authorities said. For the first time, FBI agents from all of the bureau’s field offices visited buyers to tell them about the overdose danger of pills sold online, which are often disguised to look like prescription drugs.
Common Scams On Dark Web Marketplaces
But today’s markets are more fragmented, more resilient, and harder to track. The arrest of Telegram’s founder, Pavel Durov, in August 2024 triggered a notable shift in the operational dynamics of the platform’s drug vendors. The Northern Colorado Drug Task Force (NCDTF) also helped investigate this matter. NCDTF works to protect the community by identifying, investigating, and impacting drug-related crime in Larimer County.
More From The Los Angeles Times
Patterns recommended to avoid include hiring hitmen like Dread Pirate Roberts, and sharing handles for software questions on sites like Stack Exchange. A Jamaican national who intended to distribute controlled substances that were shipped from California to Ohio through a global logistics company, and was residing in the U.S. illegally, has been… In our study, we found that 23.78% (9896/41,614) listings and traces were identified with the help of 58 opioid jargons (Table 2). Among them, suboxone and subutex medicines are most frequently mentioned by 2917 times in listings and traces in 10 platforms, followed by roxy series (ie, roxy, roxi, roxies, and roxys) with 2022 times and Lean with 1256 times.
In May, German police shut down Wall Street Market, a thriving marketplace that had more than 63,000 deals and 5,400 sellers, with over 1 million users worldwide. It was a resource-heavy operation, involving hundreds of separate investigations by five EU and US agencies. A few weeks before, Dream – the longest running and largest market – was closed under mysterious circumstances. It scans darknet marketplaces and hacker forums to alert you instantly if anything shows up. This way, you can catch any leaks and stop them before they cause bigger problems.
Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. I try to provide the best products and service I can, when someone has a problem or claims their order was short on pills (as long as they have ordered from me before) I usually take them at their word. Trade is booming despite disruptions from law enforcement and particularly “exit scams”, in which market admins abruptly close down sites and take all available funds. So, as the darkweb merry-go-round cranks up once more, the FBI and Interpol are still claiming to have ended online drug dealing. But their expensive campaigns are no more effective than a traditional shakedown on a bunch of dealers on one street corner in one city.
Investigations
But the dark net markets learn from each mistake and are becoming more secure and more decentralised, making them incrementally more difficult to combat. Tor’s clever traffic encryption system makes it very difficult for the police to know where these sites — and the people who use them — are located. It’s a natural place for an uncensored drugs marketplace, as it is for whistleblower websites and political dissidents, which also use the same techniques to keep their visitors hidden. Described by Attorney General Pam Bondi as a historic blow to the digital drug trade, the operation targeted individuals in the United States, Austria, Brazil, France, Germany, the Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. It marks the most significant JCODE operation to date, building on years of enforcement actions and marketplace takedowns, including Kingdom Market, Tor2Door, Bohemia, and Nemesis.
