Evaluating drug trafficking on the Tor Network: Silk Road 2, the sequel

Background: Housing an illicit, online drug retail market generating sales in the millions of USD, the Silk Road was a profitable marketplace with a growing and loyal consumer base. Following its FBI-forced shut down in October 2013, the Silk Road enjoyed newfound fame that contributed to an increase in new users downloading and accessing the Tor Network; however, with this particular marketplace out of order, Silk Road 2 was launched to fill the void. The goals of this study were to (1) compare the metrics of Silk Road 2 to the original site, and to (2) determine if there were any indications of the presence of more sophisticated drug trafficking operations.

Methods: Data were collected from Silk Road 2 during the months of August and September 2014 using webcrawling software.

Results: Silk Road 2 was a much smaller marketplace than the original Silk Road. Of the 1834 unique items for sale, 348 were drug items sold by 145 distinct vendors shipping from 19 countries. Of the drug items advertised, most were stimulants and hallucinogens. The United States is both the number one country of origin for drug sales on Silk Road 2 and the number one destination country. Interestingly, 73% of all vendor accounts on Silk Road 2 advertised drug items, even though drugs only constituted 19% of all items advertised.

Conclusion: This study was the first to research Silk Road 2, the replacement illicit marketplace to the original virtual Silk Road. This study was also the first to examine indications of the presence of more coordinated drug trafficking efforts in an online setting. The findings indicated that while Silk Road 2 was not primarily a drug market, there were indications that some vendor accounts may have connections reaching beyond a base retail market.