Feds Bust Dark Web Drug Dealers After They Buy Postage Online

They really should've just taken a trip to the post office.

Not Even Once

Starting as early as 2017, two men in Southern California used the dark web to sell more than $8.8 million worth of methamphetamine they marketed as Adderall. The operation appeared to be chugging along quite nicely until the dark web drug dealers made a fatal mistake.

According to court filings reviewed by Quartz, the men mailed drugs to undercover federal agents using pre-printed postage purchased online — and the feds were able to track that postage back to one of the drug dealers through his Stamps.com account, eventually leading to his and his partner's arrests.

Seedy Underbelly

The dark web is a lot like the internet you likely use regularly, except it exists on an encrypted network you can't reach using a standard internet browser — you need to download special software, like the Tor browser, to access dark web sites.

Because the network is encrypted, dark web users enjoy an extra layer of anonymity, which has made the dark web attractive to criminals, who use it to sell everything from weapons to drugs.

Dark Web Crackdown

International law enforcement officials have been cracking down on dark web marketplaces recently, and the one favored by the two meth dealers — Dream Market — shut down in April.

That closure occurred just weeks after officials arrested 61 people for conducting illegal activity on the dark web — but the dark web drug dealers in SoCal might have been the only ones caught because they decided against a trip to the post office.

READ MORE: A dark web drug ring came crashing down thanks to Stamps.com [Quartz]

More on the dark web: People Are Selling Weapons on the Dark Web