Dark web criminals switch to popular apps to offer drugs, using bots and secret graffiti messages to do business

Dark web drug dealers are looking at popular apps to peddle their products, often using street graffiti to advertise their accounts to customers, and automated bots to communicate with them.

The shift follows a crackdown on illicit online markets, alongside the introduction of encryption into apps which allows users to stay anonymous.

Cyber experts have observed this growing trend among the criminal underground, noting the innovative tactics gangs employ to evade police detection.

Speaking anonymously to The Independent, a dark web researcher who has infiltrated channels on the messaging app Telegram explained how automated bots are used to communicate with customers – both for convenience and to defer liability.

The researcher shared images of the channel names spray-painted on walls near transport hubs and other public places in order to advertise the channels to potential customers.

Another major change in the manner these drug dealers operate is in the utilization of “dead drops” to distribute the product. This bypasses the dangers of meeting face-to-face, while also avoiding the chance of drugs being tracked or intercepted through the postal system.

Goods are instead hidden in publicly accessible places, such as for example parks, before the location is sent to the client after the purchase has been made. Semi-anonymous cryptocurrencies like bitcoin facilitate the payments.The dropgangs, as they’ve been dubbed, were first discovered operating in Ukraine but have since been observed in Russia, the Balkans and nearly all of central and eastern Europe.