A geographical analysis of trafficking on a popular darknet market

Abstract

Cryptomarkets are online marketplaces, located on the darknet, that facilitate the trading of a variety of illegal goods, mostly drugs. While the literature essentially focused on drugs, various other goods and products related to financial or identity fraud, firearms or counterfeit goods, as well as doping products are also offered on these marketplaces. Through the analysis of relevant data collected on a popular marketplace in 2014-2015, Evolution, this research provides an analysis of the structure of trafficking (types and proportions of products, number of vendors, shipping countries). It also aims at highlighting geographical patterns in the trafficking of these products (e.g. trafficking flows, specialisation of vendors, role in the distribution chain). The analysis of the flow of goods between countries emphasises the role of specific countries in the international and domestic trafficking, potentially informing law enforcement agencies to target domestic mails or international posts from specific countries. The research also highlights the large proportion of licit and illicit drug listings and vendors on Evolution, followed by various fraud issues (in particular, financial fraud), the sharing of knowledge (tutorials) and finally goods, currencies and precious metals (principally luxury goods). Looking at the country of origin, there seems to be a clear division between digital and physical products, with more specific information for physical goods. This reveals that the spatial analysis of trafficking is particularly meaningful in the case of physical products (such as illicit drugs) and to a lesser extent for digital products. Finally, the geographical analysis reveals that spatial patterns on Evolution tend to reflect the structure of the traditional illicit market. However, regarding illicit drugs, country-specificity have been observed and are presented in this article.

Black hands and onion channels: a study of drugs on non-English language darknet markets

“…This is in line with other studies of darknet markets (Kruithof et al, 2016;Broseus et al, 2017). This may reflect the central position of English-speaking parties in the online darknet drug trade, which could deter non-English vendors (Kruithof et al, 2016).…”

An insight into the sale of prescription drugs and medicine on the AlphaBay cryptomarket

“…This reveals a feature in their market structure, in which a few vendors manage all listings which are mostly of large quantity. This was also noted by (Broséus, Rhumorbarbe, et al, 2017. Table 3.…”

“…the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and Germany) for both listings, sales and vendors. These findings were also noted for illicit drugs, where the trafficking was dominated by English-speaking and Western European countries (Broséus, Rhumorbarbe, et al, 2017;Cunliffe et al, 2019;Kruithof et al, 2016;J. Van Buskirk, Naicker, et al, 2016) digital literacy (Büchi, Just, & Latzer, 2016;Demant, Aldridge, Décary-Hétu, & Munksgaard, 2018).…”

“…Australian vendors offer prescription drugs to Australian customers) and mainly domestic in the United States. In contrast, the Netherlands and bserved for illicit drug trafficking Broséus, Rhumorbarbe, et al, 2017). For example, the United States and Australia were shown to offer their substances domestically, while the Netherlands mainly offered internationally.…”

Internet traces and the analysis of online illicit markets

“…Identifying offenders' physical location is a key challenge with online illicit markets. Indeed, the market structure may greatly vary across countries (Broséus et al 2016a;Broséus et al 2017).…”