Are Australians Still Using The Dark Web To Purchase Drugs? The ABC Thinks So

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Are Australians Still Using The Dark Web To Purchase Drugs? The ABC Thinks So

Following a report by news.com.au independent media network ABC have taken a closer look at the illegal dark web after it’s pioneer Silk Road was taken offline by the FBI and creator jailed for life only months ago.

In the short video segment they look at it’s Australian audience in particular noting Australia Post as an unwitting player in the game of online cat and mouse between drug dealers and authorities with the market said to have grown 30% alone locally.

Steve Bright of Curtin University notes the fallout of Silk Roads closure and it’s predictable fragmentation;

“So the market has actually fragmented, which means that if one of these new sites were to go down, if the people running one of these new sites were to be busted, there’s a plethora of other sites that people are going to be able to continue to use.”

Adding that the marketplace has evolved into something similar to eBay in which users rate sellers in a bid to find quality products and possibly surpassing as a safer means to purchase drugs;

“They use traditional marketing strategies, things like buy one, get one free, buying a gram of methamphetamine and getting 10 Diazepam. Or even traditional marketing things like fair trade cocaine or opium-free – sorry, conflict-free opium.”

He continues to note that the illegal sites have grown between 30% to 50% depending if you look at individual sellers or alternatively if you presumed each seller was unique, that grown is anywhere between 100% and 200% in the last year;

“There’s been about a 30 to 50 per cent increase if you just look at the individual markets. However, if you were to add up all the new markets, of course that would be assuming that on every market there’s different people selling, it would be much closer to a 100 or 200 per cent increase in the number of listings since Silk Road I initially went down.”

With Australians having reportedly consumed close to $7 billion worth of drugs in 2014 that didn’t look to to even include the online marketplace it seems like places such as the dark web will continue to keep on growing with bigger local communities.

Watch the news piece and read the transcript here.

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