14 DAY TRIAL // The Dark Web can be a scary place to be in, with criminal activities thriving left and right. Now that the infamous Silk Road black market has been taken down by the FBI, Agora has taken the crown as the biggest contraband bazaar.
According to a report that was recently released by the Digital Citizens Alliance, there are some 16,137 products on sale on this website buried within the Dark Net, out of which over 12,000 are drug listings.
This is about 200 listings more than the second version of Silk Road, the reincarnation of the original site ruled by Dread Pirate Roberts, which puts Agora at the top of the list.
The Digital Citizens Alliance’s Adam Benson, communications director, told Wired that users on the dark net are also quite fast on moving to new things and away from websites that seem old. Perhaps, he says, that’s what’s happening with Silk Road 2.0.
Agora, however, is growing extremely fast. Four months ago it only had 7,400 product listings, half as many as Silk Road 2.0 was hosting at the time. Following the hack Silk Road suffered in February when users’ bitcoins were stolen, Agora has started to grow a lot faster.
The site also offers a wider range of categories. For instance, people can sell weapons, including semi-automatic firearms, drugs and more. Even so, compared to other sites, Agora has some restrictions. On Evolution, for instance, you can even find hacked credit card information and other stolen goods.
Agora bans selling stolen property, assassin’s services, weapons of mass destruction, poisons, child pornography, and live action snuff/hurt/murder video, audio or images.
The site’s popularity has grown mostly due to a tactic it used upon launching, namely only allowing users in with the help of invite codes. Even though it’s quite easy to get such a code, it has managed to help make members feel as if they are part of some sort of exclusive group. Now that it’s the biggest black-market site, Agora is also extremely popular. This has attracted a huge number drug dealers and, in turn, new customers.
In the meantime, Ross Ulbricht, the alleged kingpin of the Silk Road online drug marketplace that was taken down last year, has recently been slammed with three more drug charges which add up to another four that were already formulated for his criminal case. He continues to claim he is innocent.