Dead drops, PR stunts and punishment beatings: the rapid rise of Russia’s powerful darknet drug industry
Tech-savvy organised crime groups profiting from billion-dollar enterprise that is spreading beyond Russian borders
At any one moment in towns and cities across Russia, thousands of drug packages lie buried in the ground, attached by magnets to lamp-posts or taped underneath window sills, waiting to be picked up by their intended customers.
From the streets of Moscow to remote towns in Siberia, hand-to-hand buying of illegal drugs – as is the norm in most of the world – is on the wane. Instead, retail-size bags of drugs are secreted using spycraft by an army of young kladmen (stash men) who upload dead-drop locations, which are unlocked when customers make an online purchase.
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