Not An ‘Ebay For Drugs’: An Analysis Of The Revenues Generated By Silk Road Via B2C Versus B2B Drug Sales

• In Event: The Dynamics And Regulation Of Online Criminal Markets

Abstract

The online cryptomarket Silk Road has been oft-characterised as an ‘eBay for drugs’ in which customers were drug consumers making personal use-sized purchases. Our research demonstrates that this was not the case. Using a web crawler designed to access ‘deep web’ (hidden) websites, we downloaded a complete copy of all drugs listings on Silk Road over two days in September 2013. We find that a substantial proportion of the transactions on Silk Road are best characterised as ‘business-to-business’ transactions, with sales in quantities and at prices typical of purchases made by drug dealers sourcing stock to sell offline. High price-quantity drug listings generated between 50-80% of revenue (depending on the drug in question), making sales to drug dealers sourcing stock the key Silk Road drugs business. We also find that sales on Silk Road increased from Christin’s (2013) estimate of $14.4 million to our estimate of $74.2 million. This is a more than 500% increase in just over a year, demonstrating the demand for this kind of illicit online marketplace.

Authors

• Judith Aldridge, University of Manchester, UK

• David Décary-Hétu, University of Montreal