DARK WEB OF DEALS

DRUG traders are exchanging Bitcoin for illicit substances and shipping their poisonous product using regular mail in Townsville.

The dark web and digital currency provide drug traffickers with a non- traditional means of exchanging cash and substances.

Police have had to adapt their investigations to combat this sort of crime, with Townsville’s Major and Organised Crime Squad charging six people in 2017 with trafficking through use of digital markets.

“People are using the dark web to source dangerous drugs, rather than traditionally having a drug dealer or trafficker,” Major and Organised Crime Squad officer- in- charge Acting Senior Sergeant Brad Phelps said.

“And they are using the virtual currency Bitcoin to pay for those drugs.”

Sen- Sgt Phelps said this presented massive new challenges for police, with more than 10 per cent of locally charged traffickers in 2017 linked to this new world of dark web dealing. On June 8, three men were arrested at a Townsville post office.

“Police will allege they were collecting packages containing cocaine sourced on the dark web,” Sen- Sgt Phelps said. “That led to search warrants being executed at a number of Townsville dwellings where 70 pounds ( 31.7kg) of cannabis and $ 33,000 in cash was seized.”

A 23- year- old Railway Estate man, a 21- year- old Townsville City man and a 21year- old Aitkenvale man were all charged with trafficking dangerous drugs and will next face Townsville Magistrates Court on January 22, 2018.

Sen- Sgt Phelps said the use of Bitcoin and the dark web in the drug trade had been occurring in Townsville for about 18 months. He said it had resulted in police seeing the average age of drug traffickers drop.

“We are looking at some people who aren’t stereotypical drug traffickers,” Sen- Sgt Phelps said. “These are young kids with no history who become involved in drugs.

“There are a significant number of young people.

“They have reasonable computing skills or get shown how to do it and simply order the drugs via the internet, delivered to a residential address through the mail.”

Sen- Sgt Phelps said the sheer volume of mail made it difficult for police to stop these forms of exchanges and offenders sending product could be from interstate or even overseas.