Forget the Silk Road. Forget the Darknet. Forget Nokia 3310 style burner phones. Drug dealers now use social media to sell their goods.
This isn’t technically news, but Police in Australia have no cottoned onto it and are pledging a crackdown.
The South Australian police have arrested four men for trafficking controlled drugs as a result of an operation which targeted social media dealers.
In a statementthey said:
‘It makes no difference to police if you are dealing drugs on a street corner, in a club or online. We will target those trafficking drugs to the people of South Australia. Police will continue to monitor internet sites used by people offering to sell illicit substances. And we will target these people no matter how small the amount.’
This phenomenon is not unique to Australia. Earlier this year it emerged that drug dealers in the UK were using Facebookto peddle prescription drugs such as Valium and, even offering speedy ‘next day delivery.’
Some (more entrepreneurial dealers) are even going a step further. They use social media to actively seek out new clients. Earlier this year Rachel* clicked attending for an event on Facebook. It was a dance music festival in Iceland’s capital, Rekyavik. Shortly afterwards she received a message in her ‘other’ inbox from a man who offered to ‘hook her up’ with ‘anything’ she might need during her stay.
Speaking to The Debrief Rachel said ‘he didn’t explicitly say drugs but in the context of the festival I was attending that’s absolutely what he meant. I have heard similar stories from other friends and I know for a fact that they have taken people up on their offers. I guess this is a way for dealers to connect with tourists and vice versa.’
‘If he went through the entire list of people who had clicked attending – which was thousands – and sent all of them a message that’s a pretty dedicated business model I guess.’
*names have been changed
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.