Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
BRITS’ £244M DARK WEB COCAINE HABIT
Drugs sent in the post or Amazon-style
Secret sites are ‘invisibility cloak’ for kids
you can order from the dark net at 3pm as a lot of vendors will deliver it later that night. I think that immediacy changes the appeal.”
Britain is in the grip of a cocaine boom. A study by King’s College London suggests Bristol is the city with the highest rate of consumption per person in Europe — while Londoners get through the largest amount, at 23kg a day.
SPIKED
A third of UK users can get cocaine delivered in half an hour — quicker than a takeaway pizza, says the Global Drug Survey.
Meanwhile dark web drug sales have increased 500% during the pandemic, says a report by cyber intelligence firm Sixgill. Cocaine listings alone have spiked by a 1,000% – up from 140 in December 2019 to 1,541 in April 27 last year. The National Crime Agency has a specialist unit for the dark net drug trade.
A spokesman said: “The structure of the dark net supply network is there will be some UK suppliers who ‘only’ supply here and some who will risk international supply with distributors in the UK and across Europe.
“Profits vary depending on the size of the network but can run into the millions for more prolific dealers.
Dark net drug dealer and university dropout Thomas White, 26, is estimated to have made £1.6million selling drugs from his site Silk Road 2.0 before he was caught.
He got five years and four months in 2019 after police raided his luxury flat in Liverpool and also found indecent images of children on his laptop.
He admitted drug trafficking, money laundering and making indecent images. Last April the NCA dismantled a drug network that was shipping ecstasy across the globe. The operation began after parcels of Class A MDMA destined for Europe, Asia and the US were intercepted.
Officers analysed encrypted messages to identify individuals involved in selling the drugs and laundering money using cryptocurrency.
The agency said 90 kilos of MDMA, 134 kilos of amphetamine and more than 6,000 diazepam/alprazolam tablets, with a combined street value of £4.3 million, were recovered during the investigation.
Last October the NCA revealed 24 people were arrested in the UK in one of the biggest international operations targeting a criminal dark web marketplace. Officers seized £220,000 in suspected criminal cash and Bitcoin, and more than 50 kilos of cocaine, MDMA, cannabis, methamphetamine and ketamine after German authorities arrested the marketplace’s alleged operator. This week the NCA revealed their 12 most-wanted fugitives – including Jack Mayle, 30, of Croydon, South London, wanted on suspicion of supplying class A drug MDMA and other drugs.
He allegedly worked with a dark web drugs supplier and is known to carry weapons.
On drugs in the post, a Royal Mail spokesman said: “We work closely with the police for domestic mail and with Border Force for international mail. They help us stop the carriage and delivery of illegal drugs ordered on the dark web.
“We also encourage our postmen and women to report to their managers any suspicious items.”
To be able to order drugs like ordering a pizza appeals to the younger generation NUNO ALBUQUERQUE OF UK ADDICTION TREATMENT GROUP