The international darknet drugs trade - a regional analysis of cryptomarkets

This chapter presents a descriptive analysis of illicit drug trading conducted via cryptomarkets,

‘eBay’ style marketplaces operating on the darknet (Martin 2014a, 2014b). Over the past seven

years, cryptomarkets have emerged as a significant new vector for the retail and delivery of

illicit drugs. One of the least understood aspects of cryptomarket-facilitated drug trading

concerns the location of vendors who use the darknet to trade illicit drugs across national

borders. While previous quantitative papers in this area have noted the locations of vendors

selling drugs on cryptomarkets (eg Christin 2013; Soska & Christin 2015), these previous studies

have not differentiated between vendors who are prepared to sell drugs to international or

domestic-only clientele. The aim of this research is to fill this gap in knowledge and determine

which countries are the most active, in terms of both domestic-only and internationally

oriented drug vendors, as well as which countries dominate the trade in particular drugs,

specifically cannabis, ecstasy-type products, cocaine, methamphetamine and opioids.