How Deep Web Drug Markets Celebrate Christmas

As people get into the Christmas spirit, deep web marketplaces are doing the same, with festive decorations and seasonal deals on a cornucopia of products. At least one vendor has even sent cocaine to customers in Christmas cards.

Evolution, a market where it is possible to buy lifetime porn accounts, automatic weapons, and stolen credit card details, has spiced up its web page by incorporating snowmen and Santa into its logo.​

The Majestic Garden, a site that specialises in the discussion of psychedelics, has really gone for it. Like that one family on your street that tries to outdo itself every year with an increasingly grandiloquent display of LEDs and animatronic Santas, the forum has undergone a complete overhaul for Christmas. Falling snowflakes, a red and green typeface, and a sleigh and reindeer now provide the backdrop for the site.

Along with the decorations come holiday deals, with savings on all types of drugs. In the same way that shops give their customers freebies to entice a purchase, some vendors on the deep web are handing out samples or bonus amounts of their products. These started on Black Friday, with a vendor called saxton among the first. Saxton is on the Agora marketplace and was offering 40mg of oxymorphone, a prescription opioid, for $70, along with a free 10mg of branded opioid Opana.

Then in December, the offers for the Christmas season ushered in. "SPECIAL OFFER FOR CHRISTMAS!! (UP UNTIL THE 23TH)," wrote the vendor OxyMonster, who, as the name suggests, sells OxyContin.

More traditional illicit substances are on offer too. "We have slashed our prices on LSD and MDMA for the Xmas season," wrote vendor AlbertHoffman1943 on the forums of the Agora marketplace, "MDMA for less than $40g!!"

Another vendor on the same forum, TopShelfBuds, asked if customers would be interested in buying a gram of ​butane hash oil for $25. "If enough people are we will do a [butane hash oil] sale at same time as our Santas secret stash Christmas bud sale."

Meanwhile, on the Evolution market, which has enjoyed more popularity after Silk R​oad 2.0 was seized by the FBI last month, vendor CharlieRock said they would cut the price of cocaine. "1G OF BOLIVIAN COCAINE NOW $80 INSTEAD OF $100. ONLY ON EVO over Christmas," they wrote.

Once their Christmas treat has been ordered, some customers may find the festivities continue.

One deep web user, who wanted to remain anonymous, bought a product from a popular vendor earlier in December. When the package arrived, they were greeted with a rather surreal sight: their gram of cocaine was nestled inside a Christmas card, complete with "big christmas smiles," written on the front.

With millions of Christmas cards making th​e rounds through postal services worldwide, it probably makes sense to blend your illegal shipment into the mountain of seasonal mail. If law enforcement have a hard time identifying packages that contain drugs at other times throughout the year, no doubt that will become even more difficult when Christmas cards and packages are flooding everybody's mailing systems.

The card didn't include any sort of personal message; the inside was blank, apart from the printed placeholder: "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year."