The Dark Web is Booming with Black Market Activity

The Dark Web has become a marketplace for people to sell illegal goods and services anonymously. In a 2021 documentary, it was revealed that the dark web market, Alpha Bay, was shut down by the Department of Justice.

The market was generating close to half a billion dollars per year, making it a lucrative business. Paul Craig, the Chief Hacking Officer at Vantage Point Security, explained that the dark web fills the need for selling illegal products, as one cannot place a listing for such items on traditional e-commerce sites.

The dark web operates as a global-scale local drug dealer, using the Amazon model of electronic commerce for illicit goods. This allows people to deal with tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of potential customers worldwide.

Alpha Bay was a well-designed and legitimate-looking marketplace, but it was all illegal. The majority of listings on Alpha Bay were for narcotic or drug-related products.

The top-rated products had great reviews, and strong lab tests, and were shipped secretly in CD cases or other containers.

The site had categories and lists of products with prices, and people could see a photo and a brief description of each item.

The investigation found that the person in charge of Alpha Bay, who went by the handle alpha-02, started his online career by selling illicitly obtained online credentials.

He was technologically inclined and built his marketplace based on his experience in hacking.

While some dark web marketplaces start for ideological reasons, such as providing an online platform for people to put in their bodies what they want without government interference, they eventually realize the money is rolling in and they get the thrill of operating the markets.

This can lead to their downfall. When running a marketplace, there is a risk that previous actions will come back to haunt the person, even before they dreamed of running the marketplace.

The dark web is a collection of hidden websites that you can only access if you mask your identity and location. It is a bigger threat to the overall community, and therefore, it was a priority for the police to shut down Alpha Bay.

Some of the most prolific drug suppliers use the dark web to sell their products. The documentary also showed that you can buy illegal items, such as a diploma from any school, a UK passport with the name of your choice, driver’s licenses, ID cards, and weapons, on the dark web.

Technology allows legitimate businesses to thrive, but it also allows criminals to use it to have a better return on investment.

The dark web is a prime example of this, as it enables illegal activities to be conducted anonymously, making it difficult for law enforcement agencies to track down perpetrators.

Despite this, the authorities continue to work towards shutting down these illegal operations.