Its geographical isolation from large European and US drug markets, small population, and historical absence of any substantial cocaine and heroin supply should all work against it. On the face of it, New Zealand may seem an unlikely location for a rising international darknet drug market. This expansion was driven by a steady increase in international sales, which grew to outnumber domestic New Zealand sales by early 2022. This saw over a thousand products being listed on Tor Market by mid-2022 (see graph below). Its listings grew from fewer than ten products in the months prior to Dream Market’s closure in early 2019 to over 100 products by July that year.Īfter a steady period where there were, on average, 255 listings across 2020 and 379 across 2021, another period of growth happened in early 2022. This makes Tor Market’s performance over the same period even more remarkable.

While total sales on all darknet markets increased in 2020, and again in the first quarter of 2021, data for the fourth quarter of 2021 suggest sales declined by as much as 50%. The darknet is not a hellhole, it's an answer to internet privacy And there appears to be a general loss of confidence in darknet drug supply due to those enforcement shutdowns and exit scams. No dominant international darknet market has emerged since the “voluntary shut down” of Dream Market in 2019. Getty Images The fragmented darknet ecosystemĭarknet marketplaces have disappeared as a result of increasingly sophisticated and successful law enforcement operations, including clandestinely taking over sites for extended periods to gather evidence on vendors and buyers.Īlternatively, site administrators pull off opportunistic exit scams and abscond with cryptocurrency held in accounts. US authorities announce the arrest of 179 people and seizure of more than US$6.5 million in a worldwide crackdown on darknet opioid trafficking in 2020.

Tor dark web network