A platform selling narcotics on the darknet used billboards to promote itself. Four Russian sites share the drug market and feed a vast crime market.
The black market is coming into the light. This Sunday, February 5, several billboards were hijacked in Moscow by one of the most important Russian darknet sites. The screens displayed a woman wearing a black mask, accompanied by a slogan ” Come see me if you’re looking for the best and the name of the illegal marketplace BlackSprut.
The transition with the ad that follows is so well done that you don’t suspect for a second that it’s a hack or a promotion for a fraudulent site. Therefore, one wonders if the hackers took control of the screen or corrupted the company responsible. One of the signs was located by Numerama in a busy commercial district of Moscow not far from the center.
Fierce competition between four sites
BlackSprut claims to be the successor to the very popular Hydra platform, dismantled by the German police almost a year ago. In fact, it competes with three illegal sites — OMG, Kraken and Mega which four times split the transactions on the darknet today. BlackSprut is currently the leader with 28% exchange market share, followed by Mega, 22% — according to blockchain firm TRM Labs.
These groups are competitors and publicity stunts like the one on Sunday are not new since OMG has already projected its logo on buildings in Moscow at the end of last December. BlackSprut innovates in the sale of drugs with chatbots to order products directly on Telegram.
While darknet marketplaces sell just about anything and everything – guns, porn, hacking service – these sites primarily specialize in narcotics. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine locked the country within its borders, making trade and transactions with the outside world difficult. The black market and crypto exchanges become all the more prominent on these sites.
Some platforms are directly linked to Kremlin-sponsored hackers and serve as their funding for their hacking operations. Alexey Milchakov, openly Nazi Russian mercenarycurrently fighting in Ukraine, confirmed to have paid militias thanks to OMG!, Mega, and BlackSprut. In short, drugs make it possible to finance the war.
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