Latest news with #Tor
Memri
14-07-2025
- Politics
- Memri
Terrorist-Designated Samidoun, Linked To Popular Front For The Liberation Of Palestine (PFLP), Publishes Online 'Zine' Offering Guidance For Those Facing Terrorist Designation, Recommends Using VPN, E
On July 4, 2025, the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, linked to the militant Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) group and designated a terrorist organization in the U.S. and Canada, announced on its X account that it was launching a new zine, titled "What to Do When You, Too, Become a 'Terrorist.'" It noted that the 15-page zine was "inspired by our own experiences in the US, Canada & Germany and by the ongoing attempts of the British state to proscribe [Palestine Action] as a 'terrorist' organization," as well as "the years of state repression targeting a wide array of liberation struggles and movements" and "the designation of Palestinian, Lebanese, Yemeni, Iranian, Filipino and other resistance organizations as 'terrorists' by the imperialist powers." The document contains "analysis, advice from organizers, suggestions for security tips to support your organizing and resources for further reading," and can be downloaded, printed, and widely distributed. The zine recommends the use of VPNs such as Mullvad and Surfshark, and the Tor or Brave browsers for enhanced security, noting that using Tor after connecting to a VPN provides the greatest anonymity. Noting that "in-person, device-free conversations are always best for communicating sensitive information," it advises communicating via messaging apps featuring end-to-end encryption such as Signal, Molly, and Element when this is not feasible, warning that Telegram, Meta, and "other Big Tech corporations … have a history of police cooperation." The full text of this report is available to MEMRI Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor subscribers. Subscription information is available at this link. JTTM subscribers can visit this page to view the report
Indian Express
07-07-2025
- Indian Express
Kerala engineer held for selling drugs over the internet: What is the ‘dark web', and is it really all dark?
Written by Shaarvi Magazine A 35-year-old mechanical engineer from Kerala's Muvattupuzha town was recently arrested for selling drugs over the dark web. According to the police, Mulayamkottil Edison was a 'level-four darknet vendor', and was allegedly caught in possession of LSD blotters — blotter paper infused with the hallucinogenic lysergic acid diethylamide, or LSD — ketamine, and cryptocurrency worth around Rs 1 crore. What is the dark web, and why is it often used for crimes? What is a level-four vendor? We explain. The dark web is a hidden section of the internet that cannot be located by regular search engines and requires specialised tools or browsers to access it. Unlike open web browsers like Firefox, Google, or Yahoo, where user activities can be monitored through IP addresses, the dark web conceals identities, creating a refuge for individuals who desire privacy or anonymity. The idea of an encrypted, hidden part of the internet started in the 1990s, with the US Naval Research Laboratory creating preliminary versions of The Onion Routing project, later called Tor. Tor involves embedding encryptions in communication networks, rather like the layers of an onion, and the aim was to protect important government communications shared over the internet. Developed by Roger Dingledine and his colleagues in the early 2000s, Tor aimed to enhance online privacy by routing traffic through volunteer-operated servers and encrypting data to obscure user identities. Over the years, it has garnered a reputation for illegal activities, including the trade of illicit goods and cybercrime. Law enforcement faces the challenge of balancing online privacy with the need to combat crime, highlighting the complex interplay of technology, privacy concerns, and the evolving online landscape. How does one access the dark web? Users need to download Tor, known for its emphasis on user privacy and anonymity. Tor routes connections through multiple servers (known as nodes) that are chosen randomly worldwide, encrypting data at each step. This makes tracing activity nearly impossible. Once inside, websites on the dark web use '.onion' domains, which are not indexed by traditional search engines. Tor does not perform searches on dark web pages on behalf of the user; instead, the user must actively look for those dark web pages on their own. Marketplaces, fora, and even libraries exist here, but so do black markets selling drugs, weapons, stolen data, and hacking services. Is it really that 'dark'? While the dark web is infamous for illegal transactions, it also serves legitimate purposes. Whistleblowers, journalists, and activists use it to communicate securely under repressive regimes. Platforms like SecureDrop allow anonymous leaks, protecting sources from retaliation. In countries with heavy internet censorship, the dark web provides a lifeline to uncensored information. It is also used by hospitals or other institutions to protect their data. However, its anonymity also fuels cybercrime. Black markets like the now-defunct Silk Road have operated here, trading in narcotics, counterfeit currency, and malware. Stolen financial data, hacking tools, and even contract killers have been advertised on these platforms. Law enforcement agencies worldwide monitor dark web activity, but the ever-evolving encryption methods make tracking criminals a persistent challenge. And what is a 'level-four vendor'? As reported by The Indian Express, according to sources in the NCB, the grading of the vendor depends upon the potency of the drugs sold and 'the customer service' offered. Edison was the only level-four vendor in India, sources said. The writer is a student and a summer intern at The Indian Express.
Time of India
06-07-2025
- Time of India
How a Digital Drug Dealer Went About Biz Quietly with a Postal Plan
Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Popular in Epaper Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Edison Babu 's neighbours in Muvattupuzha knew him as the quiet engineer who had returned home during the pandemic. The 35-year-old former auto industry professional seemed to lead an unremarkable life in this sleepy Kerala suburb, occasionally visiting the local post office with packages: nothing unusual for someone running what appeared to be a small online they didn't know was that their mild-mannered neighbour had built India's most sophisticated darknet drug empire, one that relied heavily on the very government postal service that was meant to serve the community. In a massive operation codenamed 'MELON' last week, the Narcotics Control Bureau NCB ) arrested Babu, revealing him as the mastermind behind 'Ketamelon', India's only level-4 darknet vendor — a top-tier status that made him the country's digital drug case exposes a striking paradox: the same government infrastructure built to connect citizens and deliver legitimate goods has become the primary highway for India's most prolific online drug dealers. Authorities seized 1,127 LSD blots, 131.66 grams of ketamine and ₹70 lakh worth of cryptocurrency from Babu's operation, which had distributed over 600 drug shipments across India in just 18 modern darknet drug trade operates like a twisted version of legitimate ecommerce, complete with customer service ratings, bulk discounts and next-day 'Ketamelon' operation exemplified this new breed of digital drug dealing, where vendors are rated on a scale of 1 to 5 stars based on their potency of drugs sold and customer service — with level-4 status representing the criminal equivalent of Amazon sourced large quantities of synthetic drugs through international vendors, primarily from UK-based supplier 'Gunga Din', believed to be linked to the notorious global LSD cartel 'Dr Seuss'— reputedly the world's largest LSD distributor. Once the drugs arrived through international couriers at places like Kochi Foreign Post Office, Babu would repackage them into smaller quantities and dispatch them across India using the country's postal technical sophistication was impressive. During raids, authorities confiscated a pen drive containing TAILS OS, an operating system maintaining privacy and anonymity while browsing the internet, along with multiple cryptocurrency wallets, hard disks with incriminating documents and a hardware were all Babu needed to build his multi-million marketplace of drugs on the darknet. The darknet, despite its ominous name, is simply the regular internet accessed through browsers like Tor that mask users' identities. No special skills or underground connections are required for this. Anyone can download Tor browser and access these hidden marketplaces in minutes, making the barrier to entry surprisingly low for both buyers and flowed through cryptocurrency channels, with Monero serving as the new cash of the digital drug economy. Other popular cryptocurrencies like bitcoin don't directly reveal the user's real-world identity but, with enough information, it's possible to link transactions back to a person. Meanwhile, Monero is designed to obscure transaction details like sender, receiver and transaction amounts. Think of bitcoin like a 10-year old note on the back of which everyone who owned it previously is marked. In contrast, every unit of Monero is indistinguishable from every other unit. Every time you spend a Monero, there are other decoys being spent, and all you know is that you are one of the many who spent the money. The receiver's Monero account does not appear on the blockchain; a one-time-use address is what gets put on the blockchain, so the receiver's anonymity is also protected. The amount that gets sent is also confidential. The end result is that Monero coins have no memory, the polar opposite of fiat the digital trade offers near-perfect anonymity to both sellers and buyers, the NCB has learned to exploit the inevitable friction points where the virtual world meets physical reality. 'Though you are present in the darknet and do all your activities, you will have a bank account which is linked to your crypto account. So the traces are always present in the surface world,' said a senior NCB official. The agency can track packages to their sources, though with limited success so far, but has discovered that these tech-savvy dealers eventually must interface with the outside world — whether for collecting money or arranging to the official, the typical journey of these vendors follows a predictable pattern: 'Most of these people who become vendors in the darknet are those who start their life as crypto traders. They pass out of college, start doing crypto trading, see some quick money, make some losses. Then probably they are a little bit addicted to drugs. Then they think, okay, better than crypto.' The official noted that most vendors are also users, with 'addiction always there. At least they used to take hydro weed or something'. While Kerala typically sees under 1,000 LSD blotters seized annually, Edison alone was allegedly selling close to 10,000 each month — each priced between ₹2,500 and ₹4,000, generating substantial monthly revenues that flowed seamlessly through cryptocurrency arrest represents the culmination of a three-year crackdown that has systematically dismantled India's major darknet operations, each with names that sound more like tech startups than criminal enterprises. The pattern reveals both the scope of the problem and the peculiar creativity of digital drug 2023, the NCB struck twice, taking down 'Rambada cartel' and 'Tile shop'— two separate vendor operations that had established significant customer bases across Indian cities. The cases followed similar patterns: tech-savvy operators using cryptocurrency, sourcing from international suppliers and distributing through postal 2024, NCB brought down the operator behind 'Hare Krishna', a vendor whose religious-sounding moniker masked a sophisticated distribution network. A separate case in Salem that year netted another major operator, bringing the total to four major busts in three to the senior NCB official, that criminals needed such attractive names to draw customers itself shows how competitive the darknet marketplace has become. The NCB's success in these cases stems partly from their technical evidence gathering. As the official explained, 'The technical evidence which we had been able to gather and put on record before the court is very strong. This is the reason why, though the period of incarceration is more than a year, none of them have been able to come out on bail.' The geographic pattern is telling: operations span from Kerala to Gurgaon, with 'Kerala, Bengaluru and Gurgaon becoming hotspots where these people get into crypto trading and also get lured into darknet and drug markets'. The common thread is India's IT-enabled services hubs, where 'the number of people who are having crypto accounts and crypto wallets will be very high'.Most arrests follow a similar investigative trail: months of surveillance, intercepted packages and raids that uncover sophisticated digital infrastructures. In the earlier 'Zambada' case — named after a Mexican cartel — the NCB arrested 14 people and seized 29,013 LSD blots, 472 grams of MDMA and ₹51.38 lakh in cash, revealing the scale these operations can of the most striking aspects of India's darknet drug trade isn't its digital sophistication — it's its reliance on decidedly analogue government infrastructure. India Post, the country's sprawling postal network designed to connect remote villages with urban centres, has inadvertently become the logistics backbone for illegal drug vulnerability is both systemic and shocking. As the senior NCB official bluntly acknowledged: 'The major cause of concern is the parcels which are going inside India. So once the contraband somehow enters into India, there is virtually no SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) in place for these courier and post office persons to do any scan or KYC check. Say, for example, a person is sending a parcel from Kochi to Delhi, absolutely, he can send anything. He can also send a pistol.'This creates an absurd theatre where the same postal workers who deliver government benefits like pensions, family letters and legitimate ecommerce packages also unknowingly ferry illegal drugs across the country. Babu made his twice-weekly trips to the Muvattupuzha post office like any small business owner, his packages blending seamlessly with legitimate commerce. The NCB has attempted to address this through regular meetings with India Post and private courier services, emphasising enforcement of KYC of the persons who come to book the parcels and CCTV cameras at the place where the person hand over the parcel. They've also pushed for Aadhaar-based verification after discovering 'multiple cases where fake Aadhaar details are being submitted'.Beyond these conventional measures, the agency has developed sophisticated pattern recognition tactics. Investigators now flag neighbourhoods where 'only a few houses or shops receive foreign shipments while larger neighbourhoods receive no such shipments'— an anomaly that often signals drug trafficking operations. The NCB is essentially laying digital nets at the interface points where virtual crime meets physical financial trail offers another avenue for detection. When crypto dealers convert their digital earnings to traditional bank accounts, these transactions can trigger suspicious transaction alerts. 'There's a suspicious transaction alerts that is always there, which is already being given by banks to the income tax department,' noted the senior official, though he acknowledged that 'the number of STRs (suspicious transaction reports) is also very high,' making it challenging to separate legitimate crypto trading from criminal proceeds. But the fundamental postal problem remains unchanged. When asked directly about existing checks and balances, the senior official was refreshingly candid: 'There's no checks and balances to prevent it.'
Economic Times
06-07-2025
- Economic Times
How a digital drug dealer went about business quietly with a postal plan
A multi-million narcotics marketplace was built on darknet, with drugs delivered via postal services, payments in crypto. Kochi: Edison Babu's neighbours in Muvattupuzha knew him as the quiet engineer who had returned home during the 35-year-old former auto industry professional seemed to lead an unremarkable life in this sleepy Kerala suburb, occasionally visiting the local post office with packages: nothing unusual for someone running what appeared to be a small online business. What they didn't know was that their mild-mannered neighbour had built India's most sophisticated darknet drug empire, one that relied heavily on the very government postal service that was meant to serve the community. In a massive operation codenamed 'MELON' last week, the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) arrested Babu, revealing him as the mastermind behind 'Ketamelon', India's only level-4 darknet vendor — a top-tier status that made him the country's digital drug case exposes a striking paradox: the same government infrastructure built to connect citizens and deliver legitimate goods has become the primary highway for India's most prolific online drug dealers. Authorities seized 1,127 LSD blots, 131.66 grams of ketamine and Rs 70 lakh worth of cryptocurrency from Babu's operation, which had distributed over 600 drug shipments across India in just 18 months. The modern darknet drug trade operates like a twisted version of legitimate e-commerce, complete with customer service ratings, bulk discounts and next-day 'Ketamelon' operation exemplified this new breed of digital drug dealing, where vendors are rated on a scale of 1 to 5 stars based on their potency of drugs sold and customer service with level-4 status representing the criminal equivalent of Amazon sourced large quantities of synthetic drugs through international vendors, primarily from UK-based supplier 'Gunga Din', believed to be linked to the notorious global LSD cartel 'Dr Seuss'— reputedly the world's largest LSD distributor. Once the drugs arrived through international couriers at places like Kochi Foreign Post Office, Babu would repackage them into smaller quantities and dispatch them across India using the country's postal technical sophistication was impressive. During raids, authorities confiscated a pen drive containing TAILS OS, an operating system maintaining privacy and anonymity while browsing the internet, along with multiple cryptocurrency wallets, hard disks with incriminating documents and a hardware were all Babu needed to build his multi-million marketplace of drugs on the darknet. The darknet, despite its ominous name, is simply the regular internet accessed through browsers like Tor that mask users' identities. No special skills or underground connections are required for this. Anyone can download Tor browser and access these hidden marketplaces in minutes, making the barrier to entry surprisingly low for both buyers and sellers. Payments flowed through cryptocurrency channels, with Monero serving as the new cash of the digital drug popular cryptocurrencies like bitcoin don't directly reveal the user's real-world identity but, with enough information, it's possible to link transactions back to a person. Meanwhile, Monero is designed to obscure transaction details like sender, receiver and transaction amounts. Think of bit-coin like a 10-year old note on the back of which everyone who owned it previously is marked. In contrast, every unit of Monero is indistinguishable from every other time you spend a Monero, there are other decoys being spent, and all you know is that you are one of the many who spent the money. The receiver's Monero account does not appear on the blockchain; a one-ti-me-use address is what gets put on the blockchain, so the receiver's anonymity is also protected. The amount that gets sent is also confidential. The end result is that Mo-nero coins have no memory, the polar opposite of fiat the digital trade offers near-perfect anonymity to both sellers and buyers, the NCB has learned to exploit the inevitable friction points where the virtual world meets physical reality. 'Though you are present in the darknet and do all your activities, you will have a bank account which is linked to your crypto account. So the traces are always present in the surface world,' said a senior NCB official. The agency can track packages to their sources, though with limited success so far, but has discovered that these tech-savvy dealers eventually must interface with the outside world — whether for collecting money or arranging to the official, the typical journey of these vendors follows a predictable pattern: 'Most of these people who become vendors in the darknet are those who start their life as crypto traders. They pass out of college, start doing crypto trading, see some quick money, make some losses. Then probably they are a little bit addicted to drugs. Then they think, okay, better than crypto.' The official noted that most vendors are also users, with 'addiction always there. At least they used to take hydro weed or something'. While Kerala typically sees under 1,000 LSD blotters seized annually, Edison alone was allegedly selling close to 10,000 each month — each priced between Rs 2,500 and Rs 4,000, generating substantial monthly revenues that flowed seamlessly through cryptocurrency arrest represents the culmination of three-year crackdown that has systematically dismantled India's major darknet operations, each with names that sound more like tech startups than criminal enterprises. The pattern reveals both the scope of the problem and the peculiar creativity of digital drug 2023, the NCB struck twice, taking down 'Rambada cartel' and 'Tile shop'— two separate vendor operations that had established significant customer bases across Indian cities. The cases followed similar patterns: tech-savvy operators using cryptocurrency, sourcing from international suppliers and distributing through postal 2024, NCB brought down the operator behind 'Hare Krishna', a vendor whose religious-sounding moniker masked a sophisticated distribution network. A separate case in Salem that year netted another major operator, bringing the total to four major busts in three to the senior NCB official, that criminals needed such attractive names to draw customers itself shows how competitive the darknet marketplace has become. The NCB's success in the-se cases stems partly from their techni-cal evidence gathering. As the official explained, 'The technical evidence which we had been able to gather and put on record before the court is very strong. This is the reason why, though the period of incarceration is more than a year, none of them have been able to come out on bail.' The geographic pattern is telling: operations span from Kerala to Gurgaon, with 'Kerala, Bengaluru and Gurga-on becoming hotspots where these people get into crypto trading and also get lu-red into darknet and drug markets'. The common thread is India's IT-enabled ser-vices hubs, where 'the number of people who are having crypto accounts and crypto wallets will be very high'. Most arrests follow a similar investigative trail: months of surveillance, intercepted packages and raids that uncover sophisticated digital infrastructures. In the earlier 'Zambada' case — named after a Mexican cartel — the NCB arrested 14 people and sei-zed 29,013 LSD blots, 472 grams of MDMA and Rs 51.38 lakh in cash, revealing the scale these operations can of the most striking aspects of India's darknet drug trade isn't its digital sophistication — it's its reliance on decidedly analogue government infrastructure. India Post, the country's sprawling postal network designed to connect remote villages with urban centres, has inadvertently become the logistics backbone for illegal drug vulnerability is both systemic and shocking. As the senior NCB official bluntly acknowledged: 'The major cause of concern is the parcels which are going inside India. So once the contraband somehow enters into India, there is virtually no SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) in place for these courier and post office persons to do any scan or KYC check. Say, for example, a person is sending a parcel from Kochi to Delhi, absolutely, he can send anything. He can also send a pistol.'This creates an absurd theatre where the same postal workers who deliver government benefits like pensions, family letters and legitimate ecommerce packages also unknowingly ferry illegal drugs across the country. Babu made his twice-weekly trips to the Muvattupuzha post office like any small business owner, his packages blending seamlessly with legitimate commerce. The NCB has attempted to address this through regular meetings withIndia Post and private courier services, emphasising enforcement of KYC of the persons who come to book the parcels and CCTV cameras at the place where the person hand over the parcel. They've also pushed for Aadhaar-based verification after discovering 'multiple cases where fake Aadhaar details are being submitted'.Beyond these conventional measures, the agency has developed sophisticated pattern recognition tactics. Investigators now flag neighbourhoods where 'only a few houses or shops receive foreign shipments while larger neighbourhoods receive no such shipments'— ananomaly that often signals drug trafficking operations. The NCB is essentially laying digital nets at the interface points where virtual crime meets physical financial trail offers another avenue for detection. When crypto dealers convert their digital earnings to traditional bank accounts, these transactions can trigger suspicious transaction alerts.'There's a suspicious transaction alerts that is always there, which is already being given by banks to the income tax department,' noted the senior official, though he acknowledged that 'the number of STRs (suspicious transaction re-ports) is also very high,' making it challenging to separate legitimate cryp-to trading from criminal proceeds. But the fundamental postal problem remains unchanged. When asked directly about existing checks and balances, the senior official was refreshingly candid: 'There's no checks and balances to prevent it.'
Time of India
06-07-2025
- Time of India
How a digital drug dealer went about business quietly with a postal plan
Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Popular in India Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads THE VENDOR HALL OF FAME GOVT MAIL, CRIMINAL SALES Kochi: Edison Babu's neighbours in Muvattupuzha knew him as the quiet engineer who had returned home during the 35-year-old former auto industry professional seemed to lead an unremarkable life in this sleepy Kerala suburb, occasionally visiting the local post office with packages: nothing unusual for someone running what appeared to be a small online they didn't know was that their mild-mannered neighbour had built India's most sophisticated darknet drug empire, one that relied heavily on the very government postal service that was meant to serve the community. In a massive operation codenamed 'MELON' last week, the Narcotics Control Bureau ( NCB ) arrested Babu, revealing him as the mastermind behind 'Ketamelon', India's only level-4 darknet vendor — a top-tier status that made him the country's digital drug case exposes a striking paradox: the same government infrastructure built to connect citizens and deliver legitimate goods has become the primary highway for India's most prolific online drug seized 1,127 LSD blots, 131.66 grams of ketamine and Rs 70 lakh worth of cryptocurrency from Babu's operation, which had distributed over 600 drug shipments across India in just 18 modern darknet drug trade operates like a twisted version of legitimate e-commerce, complete with customer service ratings, bulk discounts and next-day 'Ketamelon' operation exemplified this new breed of digital drug dealing , where vendors are rated on a scale of 1 to 5 stars based on their potency of drugs sold and customer service with level-4 status representing the criminal equivalent of Amazon sourced large quantities of synthetic drugs through international vendors, primarily from UK-based supplier 'Gunga Din', believed to be linked to the notorious global LSD cartel 'Dr Seuss'— reputedly the world's largest LSD distributor. Once the drugs arrived through international couriers at places like Kochi Foreign Post Office, Babu would repackage them into smaller quantities and dispatch them across India using the country's postal technical sophistication was impressive. During raids, authorities confiscated a pen drive containing TAILS OS, an operating system maintaining privacy and anonymity while browsing the internet, along with multiple cryptocurrency wallets, hard disks with incriminating documents and a hardware were all Babu needed to build his multi-million marketplace of drugs on the darknet. The darknet, despite its ominous name, is simply the regular internet accessed through browsers like Tor that mask users' identities. No special skills or underground connections are required for can download Tor browser and access these hidden marketplaces in minutes, making the barrier to entry surprisingly low for both buyers and flowed through cryptocurrency channels, with Monero serving as the new cash of the digital drug popular cryptocurrencies like bitcoin don't directly reveal the user's real-world identity but, with enough information, it's possible to link transactions back to a person. Meanwhile, Monero is designed to obscure transaction details like sender, receiver and transaction amounts. Think of bit-coin like a 10-year old note on the back of which everyone who owned it previously is marked. In contrast, every unit of Monero is indistinguishable from every other time you spend a Monero, there are other decoys being spent, and all you know is that you are one of the many who spent the money. The receiver's Monero account does not appear on the blockchain; a one-ti-me-use address is what gets put on the blockchain, so the receiver's anonymity is also protected. The amount that gets sent is also confidential. The end result is that Mo-nero coins have no memory, the polar opposite of fiat the digital trade offers near-perfect anonymity to both sellers and buyers, the NCB has learned to exploit the inevitable friction points where the virtual world meets physical reality. 'Though you are present in the darknet and do all your activities, you will have a bank account which is linked to your crypto account. So the traces are always present in the surface world,' said a senior NCB official. The agency can track packages to their sources, though with limited success so far, but has discovered that these tech-savvy dealers eventually must interface with the outside world — whether for collecting money or arranging to the official, the typical journey of these vendors follows a predictable pattern: 'Most of these people who become vendors in the darknet are those who start their life as crypto traders. They pass out of college, start doing crypto trading, see some quick money, make some losses. Then probably they are a little bit addicted to drugs. Then they think, okay, better than crypto.' The official noted that most vendors are also users, with 'addiction always there. At least they used to take hydro weed or something'. While Kerala typically sees under 1,000 LSD blotters seized annually, Edison alone was allegedly selling close to 10,000 each month — each priced between Rs 2,500 and Rs 4,000, generating substantial monthly revenues that flowed seamlessly through cryptocurrency arrest represents the culmination of three-year crackdown that has systematically dismantled India's major darknet operations, each with names that sound more like tech startups than criminal enterprises. The pattern reveals both the scope of the problem and the peculiar creativity of digital drug 2023, the NCB struck twice, taking down 'Rambada cartel' and 'Tile shop'— two separate vendor operations that had established significant customer bases across Indian cities. The cases followed similar patterns: tech-savvy operators using cryptocurrency, sourcing from international suppliers and distributing through postal 2024, NCB brought down the operator behind 'Hare Krishna', a vendor whose religious-sounding moniker masked a sophisticated distribution network. A separate case in Salem that year netted another major operator, bringing the total to four major busts in three to the senior NCB official, that criminals needed such attractive names to draw customers itself shows how competitive the darknet marketplace has become. The NCB's success in the-se cases stems partly from their techni-cal evidence the official explained, 'The technical evidence which we had been able to gather and put on record before the court is very strong. This is the reason why, though the period of incarceration is more than a year, none of them have been able to come out on bail.' The geographic pattern is telling: operations span from Kerala to Gurgaon, with 'Kerala, Bengaluru and Gurga-on becoming hotspots where these people get into crypto trading and also get lu-red into darknet and drug markets'. The common thread is India's IT-enabled ser-vices hubs, where 'the number of people who are having crypto accounts and crypto wallets will be very high'.Most arrests follow a similar investigative trail: months of surveillance, intercepted packages and raids that uncover sophisticated digital infrastructures. In the earlier 'Zambada' case — named after a Mexican cartel — the NCB arrested 14 people and sei-zed 29,013 LSD blots, 472 grams of MDMA and Rs 51.38 lakh in cash, revealing the scale these operations can of the most striking aspects of India's darknet drug trade isn't its digital sophistication — it's its reliance on decidedly analogue government infrastructure. India Post, the country's sprawling postal network designed to connect remote villages with urban centres, has inadvertently become the logistics backbone for illegal drug vulnerability is both systemic and shocking. As the senior NCB official bluntly acknowledged: 'The major cause of concern is the parcels which are going inside India. So once the contraband somehow enters into India, there is virtually no SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) in place for these courier and post office persons to do any scan or KYC check. Say, for example, a person is sending a parcel from Kochi to Delhi, absolutely, he can send anything. He can also send a pistol.'This creates an absurd theatre where the same postal workers who deliver government benefits like pensions, family letters and legitimate ecommerce packages also unknowingly ferry illegal drugs across the country. Babu made his twice-weekly trips to the Muvattupuzha post office like any small business owner, his packages blending seamlessly with legitimate commerce. The NCB has attempted to address this through regular meetings withIndia Post and private courier services, emphasising enforcement of KYC of the persons who come to book the parcels and CCTV cameras at the place where the person hand over the parcel. They've also pushed for Aadhaar-based verification after discovering 'multiple cases where fake Aadhaar details are being submitted'.Beyond these conventional measures, the agency has developed sophisticated pattern recognition tactics. Investigators now flag neighbourhoods where 'only a few houses or shops receive foreign shipments while larger neighbourhoods receive no such shipments'— ananomaly that often signals drug trafficking operations. The NCB is essentially laying digital nets at the interface points where virtual crime meets physical financial trail offers another avenue for detection. When crypto dealers convert their digital earnings to traditional bank accounts, these transactions can trigger suspicious transaction alerts.'There's a suspicious transaction alerts that is always there, which is already being given by banks to the income tax department,' noted the senior official, though he acknowledged that 'the number of STRs (suspicious transaction re-ports) is also very high,' making it challenging to separate legitimate cryp-to trading from criminal proceeds. But the fundamental postal problem remains unchanged. When asked directly about existing checks and balances, the senior official was refreshingly candid: 'There's no checks and balances to prevent it.'
