The sheer volume of narcotics being sold throughout the world via the dark web is monstrous. Every day, illicit drugs pour into countries, entering almost entirely undetected. Despite considerable efforts made by law enforcement agencies to prevent and seize these imports/exports, the nauseating scale and anonymity provided by the dark web have set forth a nearly insurmountable task.
The dark web plays a vital role within the global drug trade, a disturbing reality, which has been thriving underneath the Internet’s surface. Drug traffickers have grown increasingly savvy and fearless due to the gaps in police surveillance and lack of control over cryptocurrencies. Dismantling these criminal enterprises largely depends on the ways in which crypto will be regulated internationally.
Drug Store Case 01
In the course of our dark web investigations at Nominis, our research team encountered a black market drug store, Drug Store Case 01 (DSC 01), trafficking narcotics and prescription drugs across the globe.
With further examination we found DSC 01’s client base, ranging from countries such as Iran, Lebanon, and Jordan, to Japan, Italy, and Sweden, just to name a few. The scope of their reach is ominous, DSC 01 is an international criminal enterprise, which leaves no stone unturned, supplying drugs to the majority of the world.
This black market operation traffics all kinds of illicit drugs from cocaine and heroin to painkillers like oxycodone and hydrocodone, in enormous quantities. For us at Nominis, this raises extremely pertinent questions in regards to their payment infrastructure, and which cryptocurrencies are being used.
After finding out DSC 01 uses Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tron, to transact surreptitiously, our research team discovered a critical connection between DSC 01 and Gun Shop Case 01 (GSC 01), from our previous investigation. Utilizing Nominis Vue, we tracked their BTC wallet address, 19rQ**************YDcu, and identified that it is precisely the same wallet address GSC 01 is employing.
With Nominis Vue, we are able to monitor all existing transactions sent to and from DSC 01/GSC 01’s wallet addresses, allowing us to view where the funds are coming from, and where they are going. In Nominis Vue’s insights above, we can see that user accounts of legitimate multinational fintech companies such as Paypal and Revolut, and crypto exchanges like Bitstamp, OKX, and Bitaroo are tied to these illegal operations. The need for comprehensive risk intelligence and proactive future-proof compliance is essential in order to prevent illicit transactions such as these from occurring.
DSC 01’s client base mainly consists of other drug traffickers, drug users do not commonly purchase extremely large quantities of narcotics at a time. DSC 01 appears to be a one-stop shop for drug dealers who seek to arm themselves as well, offering a small selection of guns on the side.
DSC 01 and GSC 01 are evidently meant to appear as entirely separate businesses to law enforcement, attempting to distinguish themselves by offering completely different products, even in their selection of weaponry. This is just one example of how sophisticated black market operations on the dark web are, hiding in plain sight.
What We’ve Uncovered
At Nominis, our transaction-monitoring platform uses law enforcement-grade intelligence to detect and prevent illicit transactions, ensuring Anti-Money Laundering (AML) compliance. DSC 01’s link to GSC 01 is a momentous finding, exposing an indisputable relationship between the two black market operations. The use of the same BTC wallet address tells us that the two illicit businesses are being run by the same people, even though these businesses have completely different client bases and illegal products for sale.
The dark web is the most sinister layer of the internet, responsible for complicating investigations, luring law enforcement agencies into the underworld, on its terms. It forces police to walk a fine line by having to collect intelligence and adhere to the legal and ethical requirements, while simultaneously being exposed to the most abhorrent and vile content on the internet, a harrowing burden. Nominis Vue is an incredibly extensive crypto wallet intelligence platform, which allows us to provide businesses with the highest-grade of protection against compliance risks, while also working alongside law enforcement in order to outmanoeuvre fraudulent activities with ease.
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