Research paper
Who sells what? Country specific differences in substance availability on the Agora cryptomarket

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2016.07.004Get rights and content

Abstract

Background

To date monitoring of cryptomarkets operating on the dark net has largely focused on market size and substance availability. Less is known of country specific differences in these indicators and how they may corroborate population prevalence estimates for substance use in different countries.

Methods

All substance listings from the cryptomarket Agora were recorded over seven time points throughout February and March 2015. Agora was chosen due to its size as the second largest cryptomarket operating and the level of detail of information provided in individual substance listings. Data were collated and the number of unique sellers selling each substance by country of origin was analysed.

Results

An average of 14,456.7 substance listings were identified across sampled days from 868.7 unique sellers. The top five countries by number of listings were the USA, United Kingdom, Australia, China and the Netherlands, collectively accounting for 61.8% of all identified listings and 68% of all unique sellers. Australia was over represented in terms of sellers per capita, while China was over represented in new psychoactive substance (NPS) listings. When examined by number of listings per seller, the Netherlands and China stood out as particularly large, likely due to these countries’ role in the local production of various illicit and new psychoactive substances.

Conclusions

Numbers of sellers by country of origin appear to be influenced by several factors. Australia’s overrepresentation in sellers per capita may indicate its relative geographical isolation and the potential for profit margins from selling online, while China’s overrepresentation in NPS listings may reflect domestic production of these substances. Continued monitoring will provide enhanced understanding of the increasingly complex and globalised nature of illicit drug markets.

Introduction

It has been estimated the global disease burden for illicit drugs attributable to mental, neurological and substance use disorders has increased by 37.6% between 1990 and 2010, with substance use disorders accounting for around 2% of all global disease burden (Whiteford, Ferrari, Degenhardt, Feigin, & Vos, 2013; Whiteford et al., 2015). This presents unique and complex challenges to health systems due to psychosocial and socioeconomic costs of addiction, adverse events and related criminal activity that may be associated with the acquisition and consumption of illicit substances (Chandler, Fletcher, & Volkow, 2009). The rise of the use of the internet over the past two decades has led to the development of new methods of distribution of substances (Walsh, 2011). Initially this appeared driven by the sale of illicit pharmaceuticals, and later, the introduction of new classes of substances, deemed ‘new psychoactive substances’ (NPS), not subject to international legislative control (Boyer, Shannon, & Hibberd, 2005). The more recent advent of the ‘dark net’, using Tor (‘The Onion Router’), which reroutes user connections through anonymising servers, to access websites has made it possible to sell and source substances online with greater anonymity and hence reduced risk of detection and prosecution. Since the dark net and its use for illicit drug trading reached public awareness in 2011 (Chen, 2011), it has become a well-established mode for both purchasing and selling illicit substances at an international level. Specifically, the development of increasingly secure and anonymous ‘cryptomarkets’, that operate on the dark net in a similar fashion to clear net marketplaces such as Ebay (Barratt, 2012). The number and capacity of dark net ‘cryptomarkets’ has increased since 2011, with current research reporting over 5000 unique sellers operating over the five largest marketplaces at the end of 2014 (Soska & Christin, 2015; Van Buskirk, Roxburgh, Bruno, & Burns, 2015).

While research to date has investigated consumer and seller motivations for accessing cryptomarkets (Bancroft & Scott Reid, 2015; Barratt, Ferris, & Winstock, 2014; Barratt, Ferris, & Winstock, 2016; Van Hout and Bingham, 2013, Van Hout and Bingham, 2014) and changes in substance availability over time (Van Buskirk, Roxburgh, Bruno, & Burns, 2013; Van Buskirk, Roxburgh, Bruno, & Burns, 2014a; Van Buskirk, Roxburgh, Bruno, & Burns, 2014b; Van Buskirk, Roxburgh, Bruno et al., 2015), less is known about country-specific differences in substance availability and the country of origin of sellers operating on these markets. Though previous research has reported on the distribution of substance listings across countries (Aldridge & Décary-Hétu, 2014; Christin, 2013; Décary-Hétu, Paquet-Clouston, & Aldridge, 2016; Soska & Christin, 2015), this has largely been descriptive, without country-specific implications being discussed. Previous research has indicated good correlation between the availability of (both traditional illicit and NPS) substances on cryptomarkets and those substances most commonly used among psychostimulant users in Australia (Burns, Roxburgh, Bruno, & Van Buskirk, 2014). That is, the most commonly sold substances on cryptomarkets are also those most commonly used among sentinel groups of people who use drugs. However, it is not known whether similar findings may apply to other countries. Findings will likely depend on the country’s geographic location and legislation governing controlled substances, as well as other known factors such as price, availability, and proximity to production networks of these substances (Martin, 2014).

For example, Australia, due to its geographic isolation and relatively high drug prices (Sindicich & Burns, 2015), is likely to have more of a domestic market operating on the dark net, with Australian sellers selling largely to Australian consumers. Though the potential exists for Australians to import from international sellers, this carries an inflated risk due to stringent border control and screening of imported items (Van Buskirk et al., 2013). Domestic distribution avoids the risks associated with border control. Given the likelihood of a more domestically oriented market, the availability of substances listed on cryptomarkets by Australian sellers will more closely reflect Australian population usage patterns. By contrast, China, due to its strict control of internet access (Ensafi, Winter, Mueen, & Crandall, 2015), tight control of psychoactive substances (Chen & Huang, 2007), proximity to the Golden Triangle (one of the largest opium producing areas in the world), and its active role in the domestic production of NPS (Smith & Garlich, 2013), may be more likely to export locally produced substances instead of distributing them domestically (Décary-Hétu et al., 2016). Similarly, in the Netherlands, in which drug laws are relatively relaxed and drugs more readily available (Chatwin, 2015), with a large degree of domestic production of substances such as cocaine, MDMA and cannabis (EMCDDA, 2013) there would be seemingly less motivation for local consumers to source drugs from cryptomarkets and more motivation for Dutch sellers to export to foreign consumers (Décary-Hétu et al., 2016).

The current study aims to investigate (1) internationally, which countries account for the greatest number of illicit substance listings on the largest cryptomarket at the time of data collection (being Agora); and (2) differences in the number and range of substances sold by sellers operating from those countries.

Section snippets

Data selection

The cryptomarket Agora was chosen for analysis firstly due to its size: at the time of data collection, Agora was the largest marketplace on the dark net. Second, Agora provides the most detail in each listing description compared to other cryptomarkets.

Sampling schedule

A quasi random sample of seven days within the 28-day period from the 15th of February 2015 to the 15th of March 2015 was generated using Microsoft Excel to determine days on which data capture would take place. This sampling methodology was

Poisson regression

Country of origin (USA, UK, Australia, Netherlands, China and unclear origin) was strongly associated with the number of drug listings on Agora (Wald Chi-Squared = 29,769, p < 0.001). This very large magnitude of the effect can be attributed to the large disparity among seller country of origin with regard to both the number of substances listed and the category substances available on the Agora cryptomarket. The incidence of drug listings occurring from sellers not showing USA as country of origin

Discussion

This paper outlines for the first time comparisons by country in the availability of substances, and the number of sellers by country of origin, listed on the largest cryptomarket (at time of data collection) on the dark net, Agora. A very large magnitude of effect was observed for seller country of origin in predicting the number of listings on Agora. This is due to the significant differences in the number of listings and type of substances listed across countries, as the USA was by far the

Conclusions

The emergence of online drug markets presents an important new data source for understanding both the dynamics and the relative size of marketplaces within a domestic and international context. The current paper is the first to identify an overrepresentation of Australian sellers on Agora, likely driven by Australia’s relative geographical isolation and historically higher prices for illicit drugs. Data presented here also corroborate China’s suspected leading role in the production and

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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