The dark web is the deep and hidden, and filthy. It's a network of networks where many people do things that are considered illegal on the surface web, the part of the web that most people know.
It was said that the dark web is huge, and notorious with drug dealers meeting their buyers, But according to Oxford, it's shouldn't be that exaggerated. The researchers have used darknet web crawlers to scrape various marketplaces of several top underground markets including Alphabay, Hansa, Traderoute, and Valhalla.
After gathering the data, the researchers organized them geographically to provide insights into the effects those darknet marketplaces have on the global drug trade.
"Recent research in crime science has portrayed such organized drug trafficking as mostly the work of small groups of loosely linked entrepreneurs, rather than large and deeply structured criminal syndicates." And on the dark web, "novel technologies such as anonymizing software, cryptocurrencies, and other innovations can act as potential enablers for such a reorganization."
However, the team said that there are indicators that darknet market distribution networks are starting to differ from the classic cartel distribution channels of the 20th century, "where there was a linear flow from growers,
wholesale aggregators and processors, international transporters, intermediate distributors, and retail or hand-to-hand sellers."
"Instead, darknet markets allow the simultaneous presence of multiple types of actors on the same platforms."
But from their research, they concluded that the effects aren't as huge as many people previously thought.
The team indicates that darknet marketplaces are worth some $150 million a year, and have not become the driving economic factor in the $321 billion global illicit drug trade.
According to Oxford’s darknet drug map, the effects those marketplaces have, are more like local stores rather than Amazon.
In their white paper, the team has tracked and classified data from about 1.5 million trades that occurred on popular darknet markets in mid-2017. According to their initial survey, this represents 80 percent of the global darknet market inventory.
The data was restricted to just the sales of cocaine, cannabis, and opiates. All limited to purchases with online reviews.
And by indexing certain identifiers, the team formed a clear view of where drugs were being produced (or grown), where trades were taking place (geographically) on the darknet, and where they were being shipped.
They concluded that none of the three drugs are commonly shipped from production areas to customers in a different region through darknet markets. How those drugs can get from one continent to another, remains unchanged since the emergence of the darknet marketplace.
One possible exceptions include the opiate trade, which researchers weren’t able to obtain conclusive information on.
The research indicates customers in the U.S., UK, Germany, Holland, and Australia are considered the “top five” purchasers on the darknet drug market. But there is no identifiable measure to suggest how the global drug manufacturing or shipping economies have been impacted by those purchases.
"We present strong evidence that cannabis and cocaine vendors are primarily located in a small number of highly active consumer countries, suggesting that darknet markets primarily inhabit the role of local retailers serving the ‘last mile’ for certain regions. "
"This likely leaves old producer relationships and trafficking routes intact."
The research however, doesn’t make a reasonable explanation about how further deep notorious criminals and drug cartels work on the dark web. While they are only a fraction of the global illicit drug trade, they are indeed growing rapidly. And this raises some questions and concerns.