the fact that illicit shipments of toxic substances coming places such as China normally generate a big profit.
“The profit margin is huge,” Besser said, “and this is a profit driven business. It’s a greed driven business and people are able to generate a lot of money off of this, off of moderate investments.”
Rusty Payne, a national spokesperson for the DEA, explained that important dialogues among Chinese and U.S. officials have been taking place and that China seems to be willing to help solve the drug trafficking problem, but regulating online exchanges remains challenging.
Payne called the current environment a “perfect storm” comprised of advanced, profit-seeking labs in China and buyers around the world who are willing to experiment with designer drugs.
The U.S. government has been dedicating more resources towards dismantling anonymous networks involved in illicit activities, but there’s still a long way to go before the internet becomes a regulated.
Although the latest World Drug Report states that “law enforcement and the criminal justice system in many countries are still not in a position to deal effectively with the anonymous online marketplace known as the darknet,” it highlighted a number of successful law enforcement operations conducted recently, such as the high-profile ‘Silk Road’ bust in October of 2013.
Silk Road was launched in 2011 and became widely known as the first darknet market for illegal drug trade. When the FBI shut down the website and arrested the site’s creator, Ross Ulbricht, in 2013, Silk Road was estimated to be worth $34.5 million. At the time, the FBI also estimated that more than 100,000 people had used Silk Road. Last year, Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison after being charged with money laundering, drug trafficking, and attempted murder.
Then in 2014, ‘Operation Onymous,’ an international law enforcement operation targeted a number of darknet markets that had risen as Silk Road replacements around the world. It seems as if Silk Road paved the way to an even darker internet, where drug trade transactions thrive in various shapes and forms.
Years after those operations, numbers continue to show that online marketplaces for drug trade remain popular. “Our findings suggest that like other areas of e-commerce, it is here to stay,” GDS researchers wrote.
