As technology advances so does crime. It’s no longer necessary to venture into dark alleys in order to purchase guns or to buy drugs—they are now readily available online. Numerous black market websites offer to sell anything from illegal drugs to murder for hire. If you’ve been accused of a dark web crime, you need a Los Angeles criminal defense lawyer on your side. Call the Law Offices of William Kroger for a free consultation at 323-655-5700.

The Silk Road Operation

No, we’re not talking about the trade routes that connected East and the West in a lucrative silk trade over 2,000 years ago. We’re talking about the dark web where sites like Silk Road have opened a brand new avenue for crime. Silk Road was the first online black market, launched in 2011, that offered the sale of illegal drugs, weapons and fake documents. After the original site was shutdown by the FBI in 2013, similar sites began popping up including AlphaBay, Dream Market, Hansa and The Wall Street Market allowing people to buy an assortment of illegal things. People have even bought murder for hire. Although these sites are continually targeted by authorities, it takes time to shut them down, and there are always new ones that take their place.

The History of Dark Web

While the dark web is not illegal itself, it is a breeding ground for illegal activities due to its anonymity. When looking at the beginnings of the dark web, we have to first look to the Tor browser, which was developed by the United States Navy and was helpful in encrypting government information. Tor is a browser that bounces your IP all over the world and hides it, giving users a sense of privacy. Illegal websites flourish on anonymous networks that give their users multiple layers of security. For example, the majority of these sites only accept cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin, for payments, making them untraceable.

Criminal Offenses Related to the Dark Web

When it comes to dark web crimes, nothing is off limits. Here are some of the criminal offenses often associated with the dark web:

• Drugs
• Weapons
• Sex trafficking
• Child Pornography
• Terrorism
• Murder for hire
• Fraud

Defenses in Dark Web Cases

When the dedicated Los Angeles criminal defense lawyers at Kroger Law Group are defending a person facing charges having to do with the dark web, there are different defense approaches we take. For example, we’ve had cases where an underage child ordered drugs online and the postman delivered them to the dad who had no idea about the purchase but who was now tangled into a dark web crime. In such instances we crunch the numbers and we get our own computer experts to analyze the data that the government is using to tie our clients to such packages. We begin to meticulously trace them back in order to poke holes in their case. We ask questions such us: How do we know this IP address belongs to our client? What is the chain of custody? The big problem for the government is they're not going to be able to substantiate how many packages they sent unless they find ledgers, as most sophisticated clients encrypt their data.

Contact a Los Angeles Criminal Defense Lawyer Today

People can be accused of many different crimes when it comes to the dark web. We’ve most commonly seen cases such as: conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, possession with the intent to sell controlled substances, actual sales of the controlled substance, weapons charges, fraud charges, and the online sales of drugs.

If you’ve been charged with a dark web crime in Los Angeles, you need a criminal defense lawyer. Our investigators do deep-scrubs to databases and find out everything in order to give you the best possible defense. You need experienced lawyers because in a dark web case all of your emails, all of your text messages, and everything you have on your phone or on your computer at home might be used against you. Our offices have experience representing dark web criminal investigations. If you’ve been accused of a crime let us help, call the Law Offices of William Kroger for a free consultation at 323-655-5700.