Peddlers procuring narcotics from dark world of internet

BENGALURU: Police here got a glimpse of the dark world of internet when they arrested three drug peddlers from Kumaraswamy Layout on Tuesday evening. For, the trio claimed to have procured the drugs from a darknet market, which police could not access.
Darknet markets are websites that can be accessed only using special software to remain anonymous and browsed without leaving a digital footprint.
Police arrested the trio when they were trying to sell drugs to a police informant. Cops seized Ecstasy, LSD, charas and ganja, two laptops, mobile phones and two wheelers from the gang.
During investigation, the trio claimed they received Ecstasy through courier after they ordered it from Agora Marketplace, a website, by paying online.
The gang -J Manikantan, 24; Debyendu Roy , 26; and Jag Saipravesh, 23 -claimed they sold these drugs to students of reputed engineering colleges in the city.
However, when police searched online for Agora Marketplace, they could only access an antique selling and buying website.
The Central Crime Branch, which made the arrests, have transferred the case to Kumaraswamy Layout police.
"This is the first time we are arresting peddlers who claimed to have bought drugs online," said R Ramesh, DCP (crime), CCB.
"They use special software to access the website, which keeps the identity of both buyer and seller anonymous. Tracing the IP address is also proving to be difficult," he said.
"All transactions on the website are done through fake profiles, which makes it harder to trace the users," said an official in the women and narcotics wing of CCB.
Kumaraswamy Layout police have handed over the laptops to the cyber crime cell and are hoping to get details from it. The three peddlers have been remanded in judicial custody .
Agora Market
It is an encrypted website that can be accessed using special software named Tor. It provides safety against mass censorship and can help bypass government censorship. The black market for drugs, illegal porn, etc continues to evade enforcement authorities after the crackdown on similar websites such as Silk Road.
What is Darknet
Darknet markets are websites that can be accessed only using special software to remain anonymous and browsed without leaving a digital footprint.
Times View
The recent drug seizure exposes city police's ill-preparedness to deal with online black markets that have been in existence for years. It's a sad predicament that in a city full of IT professionals, police are not able to access such websites. Police should ask themselves how the drugs reached peddlers through couriers without any check. To crack down on such online black markets, the authorities must first keep themselves abreast of what's happening in the dark web. To start with, they would do well by hiring those well-versed in information technology and getting the latest software and equipment.