According to TRM’s threat intelligence team — which researches crypto-enabled illicit activity including DNMs and the illicit drug trade — “dead drops,” by which drugs are hidden in public places for customers to find, are steadily growing in popularity. And with them come far-reaching implications for law enforcement and public safety. And the fragmentation of illicit markets, particularly in drug sales, signals a shift toward decentralization — with criminal enterprises moving away from traditional darknet marketplaces toward more agile and resilient platforms.
Dark Web Market Revenues Rebound But Sector Fragments
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. Russian Market has consistently remained one of the most popular and valuable data stores on the dark web. The platform’s activity has increased significantly over the past year, indicating its growing influence and market share in the underground economy.
- Just as there are new entrants, the dark web has its veteran markets too, and Brian’s Club is one such market.
- All of this has made it one of the most reliable markets still active in 2025.
- And the fragmentation of illicit markets, particularly in drug sales, signals a shift toward decentralization — with criminal enterprises moving away from traditional darknet marketplaces toward more agile and resilient platforms.
- Violations of OFAC regulations may result in civil or criminal penalties.
- Like BlackSprut, WayAway vendors appear to be more focused on operating within Russia and Belarus as noted by the locations marketed by the ‘El Chapo’ mephedrone shop.
Silk Road 20
Despite these risks, digital drug markets are often seen as a safer alternative to street dealing, attracting new users who might have avoided traditional markets due to fear of violence or law enforcement. Vendors today are choosing to establish vendor shops and engage in direct deals through a diverse array of encrypted communication applications and email. These platforms allow vendors to reach customers who are less technologically savvy, whilst also mitigating against market turbulence caused by darknet market exit scams or law enforcement takedowns.
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But despite those wins, a years-long war of attrition seems to be exactly the pattern that the dark web’s booms and busts now follow, argues Carnegie Mellon computer scientist Nicolas Christin, a longtime dark web researcher. In an economy where the demand—drug-addicted users—remains constant or growing, that’s only to be expected. So, that can run the spectrum—from credit card fraud to sextortion to child exploitation material,” explained Secret Service Supervisory Criminal Investigator Ken Henderson. “You have to be essentially on a list, get invited to the list, to view it at a certain time and place, because obviously it’s the most tracked by law enforcement,” Lott said. Despite efforts by law enforcement to take down bad actors who lurk there, many continue to thrive.
Nevada “Network Security Incident” Shuts Down State Offices And Services
The US Drug Enforcement Administration has warned that because dealers are “no longer confined to street corners and the dark web,” social media users’ posts and inboxes can be peppered by dealers seeking to purvey these addictive and, when misused, harmful drugs. On March 20, 2024, U.S., German, and Lithuanian law enforcement agencies seized Nemesis’ servers in a joint operation. Since the takedown of Nemesis, Parsarad has discussed setting up a new darknet marketplace to take the place of Nemesis with vendors that were once active on the marketplace. 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. Monero and Bitcoin are two of the most commonly used digital currencies on the dark web markets.
Exodus Marketplace
In addition, financial institutions and other persons that engage in certain transactions or activities with the sanctioned individual may expose themselves to sanctions or be subject to an enforcement action. The prohibitions include the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any designated person, or the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person. While you could find all sorts of products on Silk Road, drug sales quickly became prevalent because of the profits it raked in. In fact, by 2013, a Guardian article revealed that about 70% of listings were drug-related. Just like on the regular internet, phishing is a big problem on the dark web as well. Fraudsters create fake versions of popular darknet sites to trick users into entering login details or personal data.
Illicit drug sales on the dark web appeared to be unaffected by the general crypto crime downturn. In 2023, DNM volumes grew to USD 1.6 billion, from USD 1.3 billion recorded in 2022. While no one leading cause can be singled out, the uptick in aggressive law enforcement efforts from authorities in the US, Europe and other significant crypto markets undoubtedly created a more hostile environment for crypto criminals. Hamas and other groups announced moratoriums on crypto donations over 2023,likely in response to greater international law enforcement scrutiny. This becameparticularly acute in the wake of the Hamas attacks on Israel in October 2023, which spurred leading exchanges and cryptocurrency companies to freeze assets linked to Hamas and its sympathizers. Recently, a group of investigators with the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations Googled “buy fentanyl online” on the open internet, then homed in on the six sites that were most responsive to their requests.
Category Deep-dive: Illicit Drug Sales Grew And Expanded Outside Of Darknet Marketplaces In 2024
Spotlight on America National Investigative Correspondent Angie Moreschi takes a closer look at why it’s so hard to stop them. Listings included offerings of prescription medication that was falsely advertised as being authentic. For example, in November 2023, while operating in an undercover capacity on Incognito Market, a law enforcement agent purchased and received several tablets purported to be oxycodone. Testing revealed that these tablets were not oxycodone and were, in fact, fentanyl pills. 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.
The Senate investigator said Chinese authorities might have been lax in shutting down these websites in the past because opioid overdoses are not as big of a problem in that country as they are in the United States. One such individual was a 49-year-old Ohioan who sent roughly $2,500 to an online seller over the course of 10 months—from May 2016 to February 2017. Over that time period, he received 15 packages through the Postal Service on dates that closely corresponded to payments he made to an online seller. He died in early 2017 from “acute fentanyl intoxication.” He had received a package from an online seller just 30 days before his death. The subcommittee identified more than 500 sales, totaling $230,000, that involved the six online sellers. The greatest number of purchases came from Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida.
For example, in Russia, freelance thugs known as “sportsmen” track down and brutalize delivery workers, or “kladmen,” who are accused of stealing. In one such channel, there are over 800 videos showing people being beaten, raped, dismembered, set on fire, and even crucified as retribution for their actions. We’re back with another video in our Webz Insider video series on everything web data.
Violations of OFAC regulations may result in civil or criminal penalties. OFAC’s Economic Sanctions Enforcement Guidelines provide more information regarding OFAC’s enforcement of U.S. sanctions, including the factors that OFAC generally considers when determining an appropriate response to an apparent violation. OFAC’s designation of Parsarad was the result of strong partnership and coordination with the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation, FinCEN, and a range of European law enforcement partners.
Archetyp Market, which boasted more than 600,000 users, operated for more than five years and contained more than 17,000 listings for illicit substances, including cocaine, MDMA and amphetamines. Europol also said the market allowed the sale of fentanyl and “other highly potent synthetic opioids.”Authorities seized the site’s online infrastructure, which was hosted in the Netherlands, and arrested its 30-year-old German administrator in Barcelona, Spain. A moderator and six prominent vendors were arrested simultaneously in other countries, and officers seized assets worth about $9 million.
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FIs can ingest this list via a flat file or API to cross-reference with their transaction monitoring data. TRM Transaction Monitoring empowers organizations to detect risky transactions in real time, based on configurable rules to match internal threshold requirements. These proceeds are typically converted into crypto through on-ramp services and are challenging to identify with on-chain data alone. Accurately assessing the value of these proceeds would require additional data from virtual asset service providers and national financial intelligence units.
Darknet Markets Differentiate Themselves By Unique Service Offering
Ultimately, the fight against crypto crime requires a proactive, collaborative approach. Regulatory bodies, law enforcement agencies, and private sector partners must continue to adapt, innovate, and cooperate to outpace increasingly sophisticated threat actors. Central to this effort is the use of advanced blockchain intelligence tools, which provide critical insights for tracing illicit transactions, identifying threat actors, and supporting enforcement actions. The progress made in disrupting illicit networks demonstrates the impact of collective action, but sustained vigilance and adaptability — empowered by cutting-edge blockchain analytics — will be essential to securing the crypto ecosystem in the years ahead. This has curtailed user confidence and stunted the ecosystem’s growth, creating a climate of distrust that is reminiscent of the aftermath of Op. Onymous (the law enforcement takedown of the Silk Road 2.0 darknet marketplace together with a host of smaller DNMs in 2014) and Op.
