MARKET FOR WOULD-BE UK KILLERS Guns, drugs and hitmen bought with a click of the mouse
decapitated bodies on the dark web. Mark went on: “You can buy whatever you want, from guns to drugs that can be delivered from the other side of the world within 24 hours.
“What we see on the internet is only the tip of the iceberg.”
Police specialist units are being set up around the world to tackle the dark web.
In Florida, sick paedophile James Lockhart, 31, was last month jailed for 70 years after Homeland
Security officers unearthed harrowing f ootage of f him raping a one-year-old baby girl.
British police this week nailed three men behind a
£1 million global drugs business on the dark web.
Colin Mccabe, 39, Robert
Price, 36, and Toby Woods,
36, of Aylesbury Vale, Bucks, were jailed for a total of 22 years and eleven months after selling drugs using the internet’s crypto-currency.
The operation, which stretched as far as Australia, was uncovered by the South East Regional Organised Crime Unit’s cyber team.
Team Detective Inspector Rob Bryant said: “A lot of traditional crime types are moving on to the dark web.
“It’s almost becoming like a shop where people can buy firearms, weapons or drugs off the shelf.
“You can walk in there, walk down the aisles and buy with Bitcoin.”
And Det Insp Bryant warned: “We can’t arrest our way out of this problem so we have to look at prevention.”
Talking of Tor privacy technology he said: “Using Tor isn’t illegal but if people start looking at things it’s right we go in there and encourage them not to use it.” Tor was created by the US Navy as a means of communicating intelligence but has become favoured by paedophiles, crime lords and fraudsters.
Users can stay under the e radar because Tor takes their i nternet ernet connection and reroutes it t to different connection points nts all over the world.
The British Government last year spent £50million in the fight against cyber crime.
But according to the Home Office only 30 per cent of police forces have the technology to tackle criminality on the dark web.
Even those with specialist officers face an uphill struggle.
Cyber security consultant Martin Kayes said: “On the dark web there is no domain name and the websites don’t use known IP addresses.
“Illegal activity and extremism is a growing problem on the dark web because of its anonymous nature. That makes it very difficult to identify and trace activity. It can be done with a lot of resources.” Last night a spokesman for the National Crime Agency said it was working with forces around the world to c atch web criminals.
He said: “The anonymity afforded by the dark web does present c hallenges to law enforcement. Those using it for criminal purposes often believe they can do so with impunity.
“I nvestigations can t ake considerable time but the NCA and its partners around the world frequently identify and bring to account individuals committing serious and organised crime on the dark web from indecent images of children to supplying class A drugs.”