Changes in Regional Drug Dealing Networks – Implications of Recent Cryptomarket Developments

• In Event: Drug Dealing Markets, Networks, and the Internet

Abstract

Since their introduction in 2011 cryptomarkets have, in spite of significant policing effort, grown at increasing rates reaching daily revenues above 600.000 USD in 2014. A number of studies have studied the demand and availability for illicit products on the cryptomarket with regards to purchase sizes and product selections, and cryptomarkets as facilitating redistribution by supplying high quality product. Furthermore, survey data show that cryptomarkets have practical impacts on the drug dealing practices and reselling.
Using data collected using webcrawling between 2011 and 2015 we use information on vendor locations in combination with shipping information on sold products to study transnational cryptomarket-facilitated drug trafficking and regional demand-and-supply comparing North America, the European Union, Australia and Scandinavia. We identify the majority of sales as falling within the lower price ranges, although a significant part of the revenue is generated in business-to-business dealing price ranges. Within the B2B dealing, there is a tendency that products are sold within a regional area.
Discussion: The patterns of distribution suggest that drug distribution facilitated by cryptomarkets, in spite these websites catering towards international markets, are highly regional and that both demand, supply and prices vary across regions.

Authors

• Rasmus Munksgaard, University of Copenhagen

• Jakob Demant, University of Copenhagen