Law Enforcement Shuts Down Websites Selling Illegal Drugs

Posted by azdrugrehabctr on November 15, 2014 under AZ Drug Rehab News | Comments are off for this article

Federal law enforcement took action against hundreds of websites participating in activities ranging from selling illegal goods and services, including dozens of “dark market” websites selling illegally selling drugs. According to the United States Department of Justice, the website addresses and computer servers hosting these websites was seized early this week as a part of an international law enforcement collaboration.

Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell stated that criminals are using advanced technology to commit and conceal evidence of their illegal activity. “The global law enforcement community has innovated and collaborated to disrupt these ‘dark market’ websites, no matter how sophisticated or far-flung they have become,” Caldwell said.

“Dark market” websites are designed to work through anonymity of both the seller and the buyer. The sites are only accessible through the Tor anonymizing network, and payments to the sites for illicit goods and services are made via anonymous virtual currency like bitcoin.

The operation involved the seizure of more than 400 Tor website addresses (.onion addresses) and the servers hosting them. Examples of the websites seized during the operation are “Pandora” (pandora3uym4z42b.onion), “Blue Sky” (blueskyplzv4fsti.onion), “Hydra” (hydrampvvnunildl.onion) and “Cloud Nine” (xvqrvtnn4pbcnxwt.onion). These sites are similar to Silk Road 2.0. They offered illicit goods and services ranging from illegal drug sales, selling medications without prescriptions, counterfeit money and fake identification documents.

The investigation into these “dark markets’ is an ongoing effort between federal, state and international law enforcement agencies.

Associate Director Peter Edge of Homeland Security Investigations said that underground websites like Silk Road and Silk Road 2.0 are like the Wild West of the internet. “We will continue to use all of our resources and work closely with our U.S. and international law enforcement partners to shut down these hidden black market sites,” Edge said. He also said he wants to hold criminals responsible for using anonymous internet software to conduct illegal activities.

More Problems With Online Sales of Illegal Drugs

Posted by azdrugrehabctr on October 5, 2014 under Addiction Trends | Comments are off for this article

In the past, Fed Ex and Amazon have been called out for allowing vendors to utilize corporate services to sell illegal drugs to addicts. Ebay is the newest online business that is being connected to the sale of illegal drugs, likely from overseas.

Since companies like Amazon and Ebay do not have a physical store, they contract with vendors to provide a platform for the sale of the items, and those vendors are generally responsible for shipping out the items themselves. Due to this arrangement, the contracts that the vendors sign protect Ebay from getting in trouble if the items are illegal or if they don’t match the description. Due to this protection, businesses like Ebay are less concerned about checking the legitimacy of the vendors or their goods.

Buying drugs online is not a new thing. Addicts simply go to websites like these and others to locate drugs for sale. Purchasing the drugs can unfortunately be relatively easy, and the addicts receive the drugs in the mail. This process may become more difficult as FedEx, one of the biggest delivery companies in the United States, is now under federal indictment due to the fact that they continue to deliver packages that are suspected to contain drugs. The government had warned FedEx over and over again that they were likely transporting drugs, but they refused to change their practices. Now it looks like they will finally make an attempt to stop these shipments.

As the public becomes more aware of the practices of companies like Amazon and Ebay, many wonder what can be done to stop the online sale of illegal drugs. In order to effectively stop the sale of drugs on the internet through major corporations a few policy changes need to occur. These companies need to establish policies that require them to know who is selling what on their sites and put the safety of the general public ahead of their profit margins. If they find that someone is attempting to sell illegal drugs they need to eliminate that item from the site and immediately report it to the authorities.