FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Tech

Cocaine Bust Shows How Close the Dark Web and Street Crime Really Are

A small drug bust in Lubbock County was like any other; except investigators found evidence the suspect had sourced his supplies from the dark web.

When police arrested Benjamin Bricker at his house in Lubbock, Texas in June, they found cocaine, a 9mm semi-automatic pistol, a shotgun, counterfeit currency, and indications of a modest drug-peddling operation.

Those discoveries might not really have stood out by themselves, but what made Bricker's case different is that investigators suspected he purchased drugs from the so-called dark web, to then sell for a profit on the street. Although academic research has found that much of the dark web drug trade is likely between vendors rather than sold directly to users, it's not often that a case so starkly demonstrates the close relationship between marketplaces on the Tor network and more traditional drug crime.

Advertisement

The investigation started like many other normal busts: the police gave a confidential informant an audio bug to wear, and $450 in marked funds to purchase cocaine from the suspect, according to a search warrant in Bricker's case. The document was shared with Motherboard by Gabriel Monte, a reporter from the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, which first reported the indictment against Bricker on Wednesday.

Shortly after the undercover buy, the Lubbock Police Department, along with a SWAT team, searched Bricker's residence, suspecting him of selling narcotics. According to the search warrant, the house contained four surveillance cameras, presumably to monitor the residence for any intruders.

After investigators searched Bricker's home, they forensically examined his mobile phone.

"The forensic examination yielded web history and saved files indicating Benjamin Bricker was using the 'dark web' or 'onion web' to purchase cocaine from overseas suppliers," the search warrant continued. (The documents says investigators found two iPhones, although it does not say what model or operating system either was running).

"Affiant observed photographs of 'dark web' pages for advertised cocaine using bitcoin as payments. Affiant observed bitcoin drug ledgers in Benjamin Bricker's possession. Affiant knows through training and experience it is common for narcotics traffickers to use the 'dark web' or 'onion web' to order illegal narcotics and have them delivered using bitcoin as the currency," the search warrant continues. A police K-9 also indicated it found drugs in a package that Bricker's former landlord had kept hold of, after he suspected Bricker of dealing drugs.

The agent who wrote that affidavit is right: much of the trade on the dark web is from dealers looking to get supplies for their own operation. Research published in May 2014 from Judith Aldridge at the University of Manchester, and David Décary-Hétu from the University of Montreal, said, "We found that a substantial proportion of transactions on Silk Road are best characterised as 'business-to-business', with sales in quantities and at prices typically of purchases made by drug dealers sourcing stock."

"With the key Silk Road customers actually drug dealers sourcing stock for local street operations, we were witnessing a new breed of retail drug dealer, equipped with a technological subcultural capital skill set for sourcing stock," the researchers add.

The creation of dark web marketplaces, where users and dealers can purchase a huge range of narcotics with a relatively high degree of anonymity, has been a paradigm shift in the drug trade. But don't forget that it's never too far from the old trade, too.