Muhammad Hussein
Published on: Friday, April 26, 2024 – 3:40 PM | Last updated: Friday, April 26, 2024 – 3:40 PM
The Shubra Al-Kheima area witnessed a heinous crime, after the body of a 15-year-old child was found in one of the rented residential apartments.
The Public Prosecution’s inspection of the scene of the accident resulted in the presence of the victim’s body. Some of his entrails had been removed and placed in a bag next to his body. Investigations led to the perpetrator of the incident.
When the accused was arrested and interrogated, he confessed to committing the crime at the request of an Egyptian residing in the State of Kuwait, whom he met through a social media site related to the trade in human organs.
Investigations confirmed that the goal was not organ trade, but rather selling the crime video for astronomical sums through illegal Internet sites.
This heinous crime opens the door to questions about the world of the “Dark Web,” which represents a wide market for the most horrific criminal activities, including the trade in human organs, sex, murder, selling weapons, and drug trafficking.
* What is the dark web?
The Dark Web is considered a refuge for Internet users to hide, to provide a safe space to practice activities away from the supervision and tracking of authorities and society.
Complex systems work to hide the identity of the user’s real address, making it very difficult to determine the websites that the device has visited. This is done through specialized programs, the most famous of which is called “Tor,” according to the website of the National Crime Agency, affiliated with the British government.
These sites operate on an invitation system. No one can enter the site or browse its content unless he receives an invitation from an active member of the site. Dark Web sites cannot be accessed except through specific search engines.
According to “Info Security” magazine, which specializes in security affairs, the number of dark web forum members increased during the outbreak of the Corona pandemic in early 2020, as the number of visitors increased by 44% over the previous year.
According to the latest data in 2020, transaction revenues on Dark Web sites witnessed a significant increase to reach $1.5 billion, compared to $1.3 billion in 2019.
* Dark market
It is an Internet site that provides live streaming services for paid clips of torture, murder, and rape, such as videos of bound victims being tortured by masked men, sometimes leading to murder after cutting off human organs.
According to an investigation by the “Jusoor” platform; Investigations revealed that the Dark Market website was the largest marketplace in the world on the Dark Web, with 500,000 users and more than 2,400 sellers, and at least 320,000 transactions were concluded via digital currencies with a total value of about $143 million.
In 2015, drug-related products accounted for 70% of all sales on dark web marketplaces.
* Open weapon market
One of the most prominent elements included in the dark web’s suspicious markets is arms trade across international borders, which hosts many different online black markets that facilitate the sale of firearms, weapons, explosives, and prohibited digital materials.
The role of the dark web has increased in prominence in recent years following its connection to the 2016 Munich shooting, in which a lone wolf terrorist used a weapon purchased from the dark web.
These terrorist attacks have reinforced widespread public concern that the dark web is an enabler and facilitator for terrorists and organized criminals searching for firearms.
However, despite these concerns, very little is known about the scale and scope of arms trading on the dark web.
The United States appears to be the most common source of weapons for sale on the dark web. Nearly 60% of firearms listings are associated with products originating in the United States.
This is followed by a selection of European countries, representing approximately 25%, while unspecified locations of origin represent approximately 12%.
However, Europe represents the largest market for arms trading on the dark web, generating revenues approximately 5 times higher than the United States.
Firearms listings (42%) were the most common listings on the dark web, followed by digital products related to weapons (27%) and others, including ammunition (22%).
Handguns were the most common firearms (84%), followed by rifles (10%) and small machine guns (6%), according to a study conducted by the University of Manchester in partnership with the Rand Europe Corporation.
*Pedophilia
Despite the large space occupied by illegal arms trade crimes among the suspicious activity of the “Dark Web,” a crime precedes the concerns of those who frequent that space.
Gareth Owen, a computer science researcher at the University of Portsmouth, presented a study that showed that more than 4 out of 5 visits to the Tor hidden services website were to online destinations containing child sexual material, which is 5 times more than any other content category that he found. Its researchers surveyed the dark web, such as gambling or Bitcoin-related sites or anonymous whistleblowing.
The Encyclopedia Britannica defines “pedophilia” as “a psychosexual disorder that generally affects adults and is characterized by sexual interest in children before puberty, or attempts to engage in sexual acts with children before puberty,” which is the accepted meaning in the psychiatric diagnostic literature.
