The transparency paradox. Building trust, resolving disputes and optimising logistics on conventional and online drugs markets

Tzanetakis, Meropi; Kamphausen, Gerrit; Werse, Bernd; Laufenberg, Roger von

doi:10.1016/j.drugpo.2015.12.010

Cited by 126 publications

(123 citation statements)

References 24 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

114

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…One of the least understood aspects of cryptomarket-related harms is their relationship to systemic drug violence. Quantitative and qualitative research on this topic is limited, but also significant, showing reduced perceptions, expectations, and experiences of violence for people who buy and sell illicit drugs online in comparison to those involved in conventional, offline drug trading [3][4][5]. This is consistent with earlier conceptual research which suggests that cryptomarkets offer an important avenue whereby many of the harms associated with illicit drug distribution, including systemic violence, may be minimised [6,7].…”

supporting

confidence: 71%

“…A recent study by Vrolijk et al [4] showed that test results provided on websites about ecstasy tablet composition often do not correspond to what is actually in the tablet, and 15% of the provided test results could even be considered dangerous to the consumer. This was confirmed by a recent study of the composition of new psychoactive substances purchased on Google-indexed webshops [5].…”

Section: Focus On Cryptomarkets and Online Reviews Too Narrow To Debamentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Cryptomarkets, systemic violence and the ‘gentrification hypothesis’

Martin

2017

Addiction

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

supporting

confidence: 71%

Section: Focus On Cryptomarkets and Online Reviews Too Narrow To Debamentioning

confidence: 99%

Cryptomarkets, systemic violence and the ‘gentrification hypothesis’

Martin

2017

Addiction

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…positive, negative or neutral). These features show how important are the trust and the reputation among a cryptomarket community [12]. As a cryptomarket grows, the number of bitcoins held in escrow may become huge and constitute a target for hackers or even administrators themselves.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Buying drugs on a Darknet market: A better deal? Studying the online illicit drug market through the analysis of digital, physical and chemical data

Rhumorbarbe

Staehli

Broséus

et al. 2016

Forensic Science International

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Darknet markets, also known as cryptomarkets, are websites located on the Darknet and designed to allow the trafficking of illicit products, mainly drugs. This study aims at presenting the added value of combining digital, chemical and physical information to reconstruct sellers' activities. In particular, this research focuses on Evolution, one of the most popular cryptomarkets active from January 2014 to March 2015. Evolution source code files were analysed using Python scripts based on regular expressions to extract information about listings (i.e., sales proposals) and sellers. The results revealed more than 48,000 listings and around 2700 vendors claiming to send illicit drug products from 70 countries. The most frequent categories of illicit drugs offered by vendors were cannabis-related products (around 25%) followed by ecstasy (MDA, MDMA) and stimulants (cocaine, speed). The cryptomarket was then especially studied from a Swiss point of view. Illicit drugs were purchased from three sellers located in Switzerland. The purchases were carried out to confront digital information (e.g., the type of drug, the purity, the shipping country and the concealment methods mentioned on listings) with the physical analysis of the shipment packaging and the chemical analysis of the received product (purity, cutting agents, chemical profile based on minor and major alkaloids, chemical class). The results show that digital information, such as concealment methods and shipping country, seems accurate. But the illicit drugs purity is found to be different from the information indicated on their respective listings. Moreover, chemical profiling highlighted links between cocaine sold online and specimens seized in Western Switzerland. This study highlights that (1) the forensic analysis of the received products allows the evaluation of the accuracy of digital data collected on the website, and (2) the information from digital and physical/ chemical traces are complementary to evaluate the practices of the online selling of illicit drugs on cryptomarkets.

show abstract

“…Lists of products and services offered by sellers are organised into categories and subcategories. Sellers -and their products -are evaluated according to the feedback left by their previous customers, trust and reputation being central components of the trade on cryptomarkets [3]. Unlike conventional sales sites, however, cryptomarkets facilitate exchanges in a context where the anonymity of administrators and participants is protected thanks to the combination of encryption features.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A geographical analysis of trafficking on a popular darknet market

Broséus

Rhumorbarbe

Morelato

et al. 2017

Forensic Science International

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Cryptomarkets are online marketplaces, located on the darknet, that facilitate the trading of a variety of illegal goods, mostly drugs. While the literature essentially focused on drugs, various other goods and products related to financial or identity fraud, firearms or counterfeit goods, as well as doping products are also offered on these marketplaces. Through the analysis of relevant data collected on a popular marketplace in 2014-2015, Evolution, this research provides an analysis of the structure of trafficking (types and proportions of products, number of vendors, shipping countries). It also aims at highlighting geographical patterns in the trafficking of these products (e.g. trafficking flows, specialisation of vendors, role in the distribution chain). The analysis of the flow of goods between countries emphasises the role of specific countries in the international and domestic trafficking, potentially informing law enforcement agencies to target domestic mails or international posts from specific countries. The research also highlights the large proportion of licit and illicit drug listings and vendors on Evolution, followed by various fraud issues (in particular, financial fraud), the sharing of knowledge (tutorials) and finally goods, currencies and precious metals (principally luxury goods). Looking at the country of origin, there seems to be a clear division between digital and physical products, with more specific information for physical goods. This reveals that the spatial analysis of trafficking is particularly meaningful in the case of physical products (such as illicit drugs) and to a lesser extent for digital products. Finally, the geographical analysis reveals that spatial patterns on Evolution tend to reflect the structure of the traditional illicit market. However, regarding illicit drugs, country-specificity have been observed and are presented in this article.

show abstract

The transparency paradox. Building trust, resolving disputes and optimising logistics on conventional and online drugs markets

Abstract: On virtual drug markets practices of building trust, conflict resolution and logistics is constantly evolving. They offer improved security solutions on the one hand while on the other hand scamming and fraud seem to be widely used on both online and conventional drug markets.

Cited by 126 publications

References 24 publications

Cryptomarkets, systemic violence and the ‘gentrification hypothesis’

Cryptomarkets, systemic violence and the ‘gentrification hypothesis’

Buying drugs on a Darknet market: A better deal? Studying the online illicit drug market through the analysis of digital, physical and chemical data

A geographical analysis of trafficking on a popular darknet market

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About