The European drug agency will equip itself with a network of repentant hackers and traffickers to fight against the growth of the drug market on the Internet.
The drug market is like that of clothes or books: it is growing fast on the Internet. More and more consumers are acquiring psychoactive substances on the Web (especially on the “darknet”), where “New Synthetic Products” (NPS) are multiplying at breakneck speed – a new one is discovered every week in Europe.
This digital drug market alerts the European authorities who believe that it is indeed there, in these virtual places, that the fight against trafficking must now be concentrated.
Repentant hackers and traffickers
In fact, many NPS are legal, since their chemical composition has not yet been included in the lists of products banned by states. Thus, manufacturers and retailers are always one step ahead of the authorities, who must gradually expand the list of prohibited substances but whose action comes far too late, while other legal NPS have already emerged.
To better understand the methods deployed on the Internet and anticipate this traffic which differs in many ways from the traditional deal, Europe will hire hackers, reveals the newspaper The evening. The Belgian daily had access to the “new strategy for 2025” of EMCDDA, the European Drugs Observatory. The document sets out the main orientations of the European agency for the years to come.
According to the daily, the agency will equip itself with a network of hackers and repentant drug traffickers, kinds of “gamekeepers”, in order to monitor this traffic 2.0. “We obviously have to rely on former poachers who have settled down or repented,” explains Belgian Alexis Goosdeel, who heads the organization, quoted by The evening.
Limited phenomenon in France
The phenomenon remains marginal in France, according to the last issue of the review Trends of the OFDT (French Observatory for Drugs and Drug Addiction). Consumers in France seem to have a still limited attraction for these new substances and, more generally, for the purchase of drugs on the Internet, although the latter trend is developing slowly.
“Even if the rhetoric and signals show a rise in power, this purchasing method remains the prerogative of a few,” the OFDT noted in December. It requires not only to plan its consumption in advance, but also computer equipment, a minimum of knowledge to access the sites of sale and to carry out the transaction, as well as to protect oneself from the risks of scams ”.
In France, according to the French Observatory, those who have recourse to this mode of purchase are, often, “isolated users, rather socially integrated and distant from the world of drugs, or resellers who buy for other users or even for dealer ”.
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