Drug market roaring with Indian vendors using darknet websites

HYDERABAD: Even as sleuths of prohibition and excise department bust suppliers and peddlers of narcotic substances in city, Indian drug vendors who have marked their presence on some well known darknet markets continue their business unabated.

“Fed up of customs seizing your order or local vendors charging you through the roof! We are here to ensure that it doesn’t happen anymore,” read a message from ‘HariPotter’.

Similarly, another drug vendor ‘Madlyfooted’ announced “Let’s make Indian DNM scene bright again”, and ‘Flipkart’, another vendor, announced “Namaste and welcome to our humble abode. We are The Majestic Garden rising star rated vendor.”

The Majestic Garden to which ‘Flipkart’ refers to is a DNM. There are others like Dream Market, Valhalla, Alpha Bay and Hansa. The announcement by Madlyfooted was underneath a listing for ‘clean and uncut’ Bolivian cocaine along with review of quality of the cocaine with a picture of it. The vendors also provide escrow services where one can track the consignment. DNMs are like any other e-commerce portals where payment has to be made in Bitcoins. 

Indian drug peddlers are using even India Post services for delivering the drugs, as claimed by an Indian drug vendor on Dream Market. Some vendors also send through their personal courier networks.

When contacted, Assistant Commissioner of Police (Cyber Crime), Hyderabad police, KCS Raghuveer said, “Till now there has been no case reported to us involving drugs bought or sold on darknet. If there is a case, it is not impossible to catch hold of the drug peddlers since drugs have to be delivered physically. Moreover, we also have very good infrastructure in place which can help tracing these drug peddlers.”