LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) --Want to buy a human organ? Need to hire a hit man? How about purchasing illegal drugs or guns?
It’s all for sale online, if you know where to look. And investigators even acknowledge it’s tough to stop.
“It's very thriving, it’s very complex, and it’s very professional,” said FBI Supervisory Special Agent Stephen Oakes.
It's commonly referred to as the dark web and on it are a number of different Amazon-like markets purporting to sell anything from drugs, to guns to fake passports. But because of the nature of the dark web, it makes the job of law enforcement to crack down on the markets difficult.
“When you do a cyber investigation, one of the things you want to do is find out where are the computers that are hosting this activity,” Oakes said.
However, the entire point of the dark web is to avoid any way that someone else could find out where the user is.
"What the dark web really is is it removes traceability,” said Dr. Adrian Lauf, an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Louisville. “This is basically a system that masks identity from point to point.”
The dark web is accessed via a special internet browser that masks the users IP address and location. That allows the user a certain level of anonymity while browsing what common users know as the internet. However, it also allows access to seemingly hidden websites that often facility illegal activity.
“I think there is a misconception that the dark web is inherently evil or entirely bad, and it’s not,” Oakes said. “It’s a huge collection of different things.”
Along with illegal activity, the dark web includes chat rooms, social media sites and even book clubs for people who simply are seeking more privacy while using the internet.
“It's a technology like any other,” Lauf said. “It’s got uses for good. It’s got uses for bad. It's up to us to decide what to do with it.”
But for those who are using the dark web for bad, business is thriving.
“It's very thriving," Oakes said. "It’s very complex, and it’s very professional."
The largest markets on the dark web are the drug markets where seemingly any drug and any amount can be found, often at lower prices than on the street.
The largest drug market was a site called Alphabay, but federal investigators were able to shut the site down in July 2017. The market serviced more than 200,000 users and 40,000 vendors.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Alexandre Cazes, the operator of the site, was arrested on July 5, 2017, by authorities in Thailand. Officials said they were able to track Cazes because he posted his personal email address in a very early message on the site.
“This is likely one of the most important criminal investigations of the year: taking down the largest dark net marketplace in history,” said then-U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Eight days after he was arrested, Cazes committed suicide in a Thai prison, according to authorities.
Anonymous gun sales complicates enforcement
Another challenge that continues to develop for law enforcement is the continued growth of gun sales on the dark web.
“The anonymity, the idea that you're often not going to meet face to face with the person engaged in the activity is a challenge,” said special agent in charge of the ATF Louisville field office, Stuart Lowrey.
Within the United States, any sale of a firearm across state lines that does not go through a licensed seller is illegal. Many of the sales of firearms on the dark web are international as well.
“A lot of traffickers will try to disassemble firearms,” Lowrey said. “They'll take parts and pieces of firearms inside a laptop, inside a video game device.”
In 2014, Adam Bunger pleaded guilty to charges of exporting firearms outside of the United States. ATF agents said Bunger was operating on a dark web site called “Black Market Reloaded.”
The indictment says he sold guns to people in the United Kingdom, Sweden and Australia. He did so by disassembling the guns and placing the parts inside of Xbox game consoles.
“It’s a different type of crime,” Lowrey said. “But we continue to develop our techniques.”
Less common markets also exist but are harder to find. Some sites claim to offer hitman services. Others claim to have human organs for sale. One listing had a kidney for sale at a price tag of $150,000.
“Federal law prohibits the selling of organs or tissues," said Shelley Heavrin Snyder, director of community outreach for Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates. "All anatomical donations are, in fact, an extraordinary gift. A living donor cannot be paid for the donation because it is illegal under the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984."
But experts warn its not all bad and that the dark web is simply a tool. However, it still creates new challenges as law enforcement tries to track and keep up with the illegal activity right under everyone’s noses
“If you configure a server correctly in the dark web, it should actually be impossible to find out where it really is,” Oakes said. “It’s not going to go away, certainly, and it's foolish to think that it will.”
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