Welcome to Meth-stralia: Shocking extent of Australia’s illegal online drug trade exposed

EXCLUSIVE: A news.com.au investigation has exposed the shocking scale of Australia’s illegal online drug trade.

A news.com.au investigation has exposed the shocking extent of Australia’s online drug trade, with $7.5 million in illicit substances available to buy in any given week.

By data mining listings on the leading Dark Web marketplace, Agora, news.com.au can reveal that Australian dealers offered more than 9000 individual listings of drugs during the seven-day period analysed.

Stimulants — including methamphetamines, cocaine and speed — were the most readily available class of drugs, with 56 sellers offering 2060 listings.

A word cloud representation of Australia’s illegal online drug trade.

Over the week examined, the total inventory for stimulants was worth $2.5 million, with an average listing price of $1191.

Ecstasy and cannabis were the next most-listed items.

New sellers constantly enter the market, and the top tier can offload as much as an estimated $800,000 each month.

The news.com.au analysis found that Australia’s top dealer, “TheProfessionals”, has an estimated total income of $3.3 million selling about $824,266 worth of drugs a month.

Australia is an important player on the global black market for drugs, with one in three listings for methamphetamine and Codeine, an opioid pain medicine, coming from Australia. One in four listings for heroin and the psychedelic DMT (N,N-Dimethyltryptamine) are from Australia, as are 37 per cent of all listings of Oxycodone, another opioid pain medication.

These figures represent only a snapshot of the larger industry, with at least 10 other marketplaces active on the Dark Web, a network of anonymous sites that hide the identity of the creators and their IP (internet protocol) addresses.

People can access the dark web via a special browser, which similarly hides the identity of visitors and makes transactions nearly impossible to track.

Agora launched in 2013 and surpassed Silk Road in September 2014 to become the largest black market on the Dark Web.

An example of the drugs listings on Agora.

Agora was unaffected by Operation Onymous, an international crackdown from November 2014 where authorities shut down several major online dark markets, most notably Silk Road.

The easy-to-use site allows Australians to buy and sell illicit substances in large quantities.

Using a similar layout to auction site eBay, customers can search for drugs via category, country and price.

A search for Australia reveals 38 pages of listings. The site caters for everyone from individual users to mid-level dealers. For example, customers can buy a single ecstasy tablet for $26, or buy 1000 for $11,099.

Buyers are willing to spend more than $10,000 on a single listing. The top single price during the week examined was $67,106 for 7kg of “custom” cannabis.

The top asking price for a pack of 1000 100mg MDMA caps was $13,389.

Much like eBay, the seller’s reputation is critical and buyers can give each vendor a rating.

Prospective customers can only buy the stock with bitcoin, a virtual currency that makes transactions near impossible to track.

The Sydney-based National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (NDARC) has found that the advent of online marketplaces had broadened the availability in Australia of synthetic drugs, known as new psychoactive substances, which are designed to mimic the effects of established drugs, such as cannabis, cocaine, ecstasy and LSD. The centre also found that the internet had made more conventional illicit substances, such as cannabis and MDMA, easier to buy.

It is difficult, however, to assess what quantities of the drugs are being sold, and how often they are being bought.

NDARC research from last year found that only 7 per cent of existing ecstasy users had used the internet for their most recent purchase, preferring instead to buy from friends and dealers.

There is $7.5 million worth of illicit drugs on sale online in Australia in any given week.

The NSW and Victorian police forces declined to comment specifically on news.com.au’s research, but both said they were aware of Australia’s online drug trade.

“The NSW Police Force is aware of this website and others to facilitate illegal activity, including the supply of illicit drugs, and has a number of strategies in place,” a NSW Police spokeswoman said.

“For operational reasons we will not discuss these strategies; however, we would like to remind people that the normal penalties apply for any illegal activities conducted online, including the supply of prohibited drugs.”

A spokeswoman for Victoria Police said its E-Crime Squad was “constantly increasing their skills and training to make sure they keep up to date with new methodologies”.

“Digital analysts also work closely with investigators to address these growing concerns,” she said.

“Police urge anyone with knowledge of criminal activity to report it to their local police or anonymously through Crime Stoppers.”

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Originally published as Welcome to Meth-stralia: Shocking extent of Australia’s illegal online drug trade exposed