By Rory McKeown
This article originally appeared on dailystar.co.uk
WARNING: What You’re about to read is extremely dangerous and is really not to be explored or messed with.
The Dark Web is home to online criminality and its users browse the unbelievable vast web world undetected.While the Dark Web can be used for positive purposes, it offers a safe haven for drug lords, pedophiles and life-ruining hackers.
Users can access anything – from accessing drug marketplaces to the most depraved pornography imaginable.
The Dark Web is becoming a major headache for the FBI and their counterparts across the pond.
Drug dealers can send out cocaine, cannabis, MDMA, magic mushrooms and all the illegal substances under the sun to any willing customer.
FIRE ARM: A Desert Eagle can be bought on the Dark Web
Hitmen can be hired to kill, hackers can be hired to ruin lives, and pedophiles can share sick videos with other lowlifes.Shockingly, some websites claim to show rape and torture.We may believe the internet we access everyday is huge but it barely touches the surface compared to the Dark Web.The Dark Web, combined with the Deep Web, provides a massive 96% of the internet available.It’s not accessible using regular web browsers like Google Chrome, Safari or Firefox, which only offer users the ability to view Surface Web.Daily Star Online spent just an hour in the Dark Web and was overwhelmed with the scale of what was on offer.We used the Tor internet browser to access the Dark Web.
Dark Web websites are only accessible on Tor using .onion domains compared to the usual Surface Web domains, such as .com or .co.uk.
We found a bulletin page called The Hidden Wiki, a page in the style of the Wikipedia website offering links to popular Dark Web sites.
It looks like a regular website on first glance but just a quick browse opens up a sinister world of fraud, drugs and pedophilia.
Daily Star Online also used a search engine similar to Google called Not Evil.
Searches such as ‘drugs’ and ‘weapons’ returned thousands of results.
Here is what we were able to access – and it will shock you.
DRUGS
The Dark Web is awash with market places featuring elusive sellers providing any drug you could think of.Daily Star Online uncovered countless drug markets offering illegal substances to all corners of the globe by typing in keywords on a Dark Web search engine.Most would ask customers to enter a special login and password to enter but others would allow web users to freely enter the site.Cannabis was predominantly the drug of choice for UK sellers.One site – CannabisUK – offered varying weed strains to customers.Purple Kush was one variation of cannabis on offer.
The site described it as “beautiful AAA PK, caked in crystal. Nice color, distinctly purple.
“Close trimmed, fluffy fat buds. Pungent kush aroma and flavor.”
It was advertised with a close-up photo of the product.
A site called Dr Drugs boasted of offering a discrete supply service to customers.
Up to 10 grams of MDMA and 100 grams of speed paste was on offer at “cheaper” prices, costing up to $302 (£195).
Daily Star Online also uncovered a database offering web users a variety of PDF documents containing detailed descriptions of drugs and their effects – and how you can make them yourself Breaking Bad-style.
Documents included The Construction and Operation of Clandestine Drug Laboratories, Growing the Hallucinogens, The Secrets of Methamphetamine Manufacture, and A Complete MDMA Synthesis for the First Time Chemist.
Although some of the links we found were broken, occasionally there would be a drugs site seized by the FBI.
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FRAUD
Ripping off your friends, family, neighbors and even the government is offered on the Dark Web.The Hidden Wiki page – the portal to popular Dark Web links – provided a section dedicated to money and fraud.Up to 30 fraud links were featured – with thousands more sites available.Sites we encountered included: AmazingCC – a website selling skimmed credit cards.Evil Philanthropists – a portal describing itself as “an international skimming syndicate with years of experience”.
MMM Euro Counterfeits – a site offering “high-quality” 100, 50 and 20 counterfeit Euro notes.
Worryingly, a site we found claimed it offered UK passports to “people who want to work in the EU/UK”.
The UK passport site claimed customers’ details will be entered into the “official passport database” and claimed it used a “trade secret” to get it there.
It claimed: “Information on how to send us your info and pictures will be given after purchase.
“You can even enter the UK/EU with our passports, we can just add a stamp for the country you are in.”
WEAPONS
Dark Web users are just a few clicks away from owning a handgun.With just using the keyword “weapons” on the Not Evil Dark Web search engine, Daily Star Online was able to find the website EuroGuns.The website offered three guns for sale using the BitCoin currency.Users could also buy ammunition.Along with two pistols, customers could also buy a deadly Desert Eagle IMI for around $1250 (£810).Another Dark Web forum discussing all-things crime featured a discussion on how to hire a hitman.
Read more: Undercover Researcher Infiltrates The Deep Web. This Is What She Finds