Exclusive: Meet the Aussie king of dark net drug sales
IN THIS exclusive interview, a drug dealer making a fortune selling ice and heroin on the dark net tells news.com.au he’s a businessman like any other.
THE analogy I like to use for the dark net is that it’s “a whole other internet underneath our internet”.
It’s an internet that doesn’t recognise the law of any government or governing body. It’s the one that Edward Snowden and Julian Assange use to communicate with journalists. And the one where any Joe Bloggs can hire a hitman at a dark net marketplace and grab an ounce of coke on his way out.
Its most famous marketplace, Silk Road, might have been shut down in 2013 and its founder Ross Ulbricht given a life sentence without parole, but three years later, even more markets have sprung up in its place.
THE END. OF NOTHING.
As a journalist I’ve been fascinated with the darker parts of the internet for a while. And by June of this year, I’d followed the security protocol to gain the status of “new member” on one of the highest-rated, most-frequented markets on the dark net, one that offers a freakish array of illegal substances from vendors from all over the globe, as well as weapons, fraud elements, counterfeit goods, and digital items (but strictly no taboo porn, unlike other markets).
Up until this day I’ve never been able to bring myself to click on any link but “drugs and chemicals”.
This particular market is on the higher end, resembling Amazon or eBay, and complete with advanced category search, detailed product information, vendor ratings based on (almost universally civil) user feedback, refund policies, shipping estimates and options, and even funds held over in escrow until the product is delivered.
The market retains support staff, mediators and monitors, and private messages can be sent between buyers and market staff, and between buyers and sellers, or as they’re known throughout the marketplace — vendors.
The private message tab was too inviting to ignore.
MEET AUSKING
After contacting a variety of vendors, it was the seller deemed least likely to even reply to my message that ended up speaking out.
Ausking, one of the largest vendors of illegal substances in Australia, runs a branch of their store on multiple dark net markets including the one I’d joined, shipping everything from weed to ice to “China White” heroin, worldwide.
Ausking boasts a perfect reputation — 10 out of a possible 10 when it comes to trust and quality, according to his reviews. For Aussies, they promise NDD (next day delivery) if the buyer’s address is located within the Australia Post express post zone, and their packaging is comprised of vacuum-sealed plastic and mylar bags (which are made x-ray and sniff-proof by what is essentially a layer of flexible metal).
As if we weren’t talking about illegal drugs, I asked how they achieved such an impeccable reputation, and they put it down to “honesty, integrity, quality and hard work”. An answer that many of us would find a bit contradictory, considering the fact that they are criminals by law.
Reminding myself that I’m not merely talking to the owner of a furniture shop, and that Ross Ulbricht, the founder of Silk Road, was involved in an attempted assassination (by unknowingly hiring an undercover detective to do the hit), I asked about the relationship between violence and vendors in Australia.
“There is no violence involved in our business. It’s not needed nor is it wanted by anyone. All you need to do is watch the news and you will see shootings on a weekly basis, this all links back to non-dark net drug deals. The dark net creates the safest environment for users and sellers.”
That’s easy for Ausking to say, but I wondered how they felt about the fact that these vendors can set up shop on the same virtual street that offers violent services and underage pornography.
“In general these dark net sites do not allow these things you speak of. There are sick individuals out there but they are not accepted on dark markets nor the forums we drug vendors are on.
“I think if you look at the way we operate you can see we are not these sick people. We are nonviolent and we hate with a passion these sick individuals.”
PROFITS? WHAT ABOUT SAFETY?
In the case of Ausking, their profits come from substances like pure Afghan heroin. And they’re making big money.
“As we are currently one of the largest and most trusted companies serving customers on the dark net today, we would expect to grow into a Fortune 500 company in Australia as these substances are legalised.”
I asked if they ever worried about what happens to the buyer (who in most cases is also the user), at the other end.
“Yes of course, we offer users warnings on dangerous drugs and advise them to take care. Now weed is becoming accepted but this is just the beginning of a right slowly being restored to the people. No drug should be taken without knowledge of what you are taking and how much you can safely take.”
“If your sister/brother is going to take drugs and there was nothing you could do about it would you want her trying to find a dealer on the street where she has zero feedback on what she is taking other than from the seller, or would you rather her buy from an online vendor with outstanding feedback and user reviews on the drug?”
The parents of Daniel Skelly, who died in 2014 after buying synthetic drugs from the dark net (from an unknown retailer), would no doubt disagree.
But by now, it was clear I was talking to a representative of a business that’s hyper conscious of promoting itself, as if trained to keep PR in mind at all times when interacting with the public. I wondered about their relationship with libertarianism.
“People should have the right to use substances when not harming others. We are allowed to get intoxicated/high on what we are told is okay by the government (at the time — remember alcohol was once illegal and weed is now legal in many places), even though there is often greater side effects from legal drugs. Why is it a crime to use another type of drug? If you look into this you will see the reasons behind drugs being made illegal would be laughed at by everyone with a right mind in this day.
“If the war on drugs were stopped and drugs were legalised, cartels and violent drug gangs would vanish over night as legitimate companies would replace them (think of the tax revenue), with all this extra money now free from the drug war they could educate people and look into the issues as to why some people abuse drugs more than others. How many lives would be saved over night?”
And to those with the blanket belief that anyone who sells on a dark net market is evil?
“These people are very narrow-minded and might as well be racists painting it all with one brush. If they opened their minds to the world and had a look at the people in it from all walks of life they would find good, grey and evil.”
Finally, I wanted to know where all this was heading. Pockets of our world are implementing the decriminalisation or even legalisation of some or all substances, tackling drug addiction as a health/social problem rather than a crime, but to me it doesn’t seem like the “for” camp will ever totally sway the “against”, or vice versa.
I asked how shifting tides would affect Ausking’s seemingly thriving business, and dark net markets in general.
“This is a hard one, dark markets will provide for places that legalisation is not yet through. They will one day not be selling drugs at all if this happens and the war will be won! We work extremely hard to run our business as if it is a legal one, while still covering ourselves from prosecution.”
“While this is hard, we do a pretty damn good job of it, delivering an experience akin to dealing with a very large and professional legal business. The day it becomes legal will open up a world of opportunities to further improve the professionalism of our company.”
TWO CENTS FROM A FORMER ADDICT
I’m a former long-time user of a hard substance, and I was raised with nothing but scare tactics when it comes to drugs.
I can’t say I agree with Ausking, but if this market and its accompanying forum was around back-in-the-day, at least I would have been more educated on what I was taking, and therefore less likely to unnecessarily endanger myself with an unknown product, and saved myself many a scary moment.
But on the other hand, I’d also have access to anything and everything under the sun from behind the unreality of my laptop.
Sure, I wasted months worth of hours sitting in my car waiting to score or travelling to God-knows-where only to return home empty-handed, but a dark net market could have sent me down paths I wouldn’t even think to broach in real life.
And as I’m a former addict, any talk of profiteering from certain substances, whether legal or illegal, leaves me a little queasy.
What Ausking and I (and most of the medical community) do agree on is that the war on drugs was an astounding failure devised by people who knowingly contributed to the stigma of drug addiction just so they could hunt down a few bad guys, who were only quickly replaced by other bad guys.
Sure, there are some evil people profiting from selling illicit substances, but the demand for these drugs lies within the wounded spirit of the addict — and the stigma only digs its finger into that wound, making it harder for them to seek help, to grow educated away from the propaganda on either side, and to eventually clean up, see themselves as worthy, and become defined by something new.
Jeremy Cassar is a screenwriter and novelist from Sydney.
