SHOCKING SCALE
BRITAIN is now the biggest market place in Europe for secret online cocaine dealing, chilling new figures reveal.
The country also accounts for a THIRD of the £733million worth of the drug sold each year worldwide on the dark web.
And the National Crime Agency estimates a huge chunk of the UK’s £244million cocaine industry conducted on the internet’s sinister underworld is bought by users here.
More and more tech-savvy children and teenagers are being drawn into the dark web’s world because it offers them a “Harry Potter-style invisibility cloak” in their search for drugs.
This week the NCA confirmed there were “more customers for cocaine in the UK so more is supplied”.
And the biggest dealers in Britain can rake in up to £80million a year, shipping cocaine to buyers Amazonstyle – with sameday deliveries from dark web shopping sites hidden from mainstream internet users. They even send shipments in the post. Our investigators logged into the internet’s shadowy underbelly and found dozens of listings for top-end pure cocaine, with just a few mouse clicks.
One listing offered “fish scale” Peruvian, high in potency, at £73 per gram. Another UK dealer called Billy Bobs House boasts of selling “high-purity cocaine (sniffing only)” which can be shipped for just £50 by Royal Mail.
And another – using the moniker UK County Lines – is flogging 1g of “uncut cocaine” with 90% purity for £70. The vendor will ship anywhere in the UK and adds: “Every effort is put in place whilst packing the product to avoid detection.
“First it goes into the baggie, then into a mylar bag which is then placed into a card and then into an envelope. Finally it is placed in a padded jiffy.” Elsewhere a seller using the name Escobars Mums Cocaine – a reference to Colombian
cocaine crime lord Pablo Escobar – is listing 6g of cocaine for £286.
They write: “Buy five and get the sixth one free! Here you have a superior batch of clean cocaine product as seen in the photo.” Claiming it gives a “euphoric genuine high”, they add: “This is for real cocaine consumers only.”
Payment is through online cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Monero, Etherium and Litecoin. They can be bought through exchange sites using payment services such as PayPal.
The drug sites even post reviews by customers who give feedback on “stealth”, “communication” and “quality” with comments such as “coke is smooth” and “easy on the nose and good high”.
One user told us this market place wiped out the risks of back-alley drug drops. “You don’t have to go to shady meetings and risk getting shanked by a dealer – it’s delivered to your door by Royal Mail.
“I’ve been using the dark web for years. It’s safer and makes it easier to access the drugs I want.” But Nuno Albuquerque, consultant treatment lead for the UK Addiction Treatment Group (UKAT), warned: “There has been a boom in dark web usage during lockdown. People buy on it because they think it’s safer. But no one knows what happens to the drugs in transit, who handles it.”
UKAT told us there had been a boom in youngsters seeking help after being lured on to the dark web to buy drugs.
Last July alone the group received 103 online chat and call-back requests from children and young adults under 25 struggling with a dark web drug dependency.
The youngest was just 13.
The entire previous year UKAT had no enquiries for help at all linked to youngsters addicted through the dark web.
Public Health England data now shows drug deaths are at an all-time high across the country – especially in so-called Generation X, born between the mid-60s and 1980.
Mr Albuquerque added: “We’re extremely worried about the rise in these dark web cries for help. To be able to order drugs in the same way you’d order a pizza online is frightening
Every effort is put in place while packing the product to avoid any detection
DARK WEB DRUG DEALER ON DELIVERY OF DEADLY DRUGS
but extremely appealing to a younger generation who want to remain ‘off the radar’.
“The dark web offers a Harry Potter-style invisibility cloak to buy drugs and its appeal to the younger generation is clear. Drugs bought by any means is risky, you will never know exactly what you’re getting.
“Every time you use them you are gambling your life because the ingredients will never be listed.”
The dark web is just a small part of the £132billion annual trade in drugs in Europe and North America.
But the UK is cornering the dark web market according to Dr Monica Barratt, a social scientist involved in conducting the largest survey of drug use around the world.
She said: “If you live in London