The report also shows that the recipients of trafficked firearms were people who had previously been convicted of a felony in almost 60 percent of the cases in which investigators were able to identify the background of the recipient. Furthermore, trafficked firearms were used to commit additional crimes in almost 25 percent of the cases, Dettelbach said. That includes more than 260 murders and more than 220 attempted murders, according to the report.
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Online purchases of drugs are often delivered to a mailbox or a “dead drop” location, or sellers utilize mail services or international trade networks. Countries geographically close to the United States likely do not need to purchase firearms on the darknet and can rely on direct smuggling across the border. For example, it is estimated between 70% and 90% of guns recovered at crime scenes in Mexico can be followed back to the US drug cartels who smuggle them across the border. Understanding how firearms move globally within these unregulated networks is crucial to addressing their impact on society.
Across a conference room table on the 35th floor of a Manhattan high rise were three agents with decades of experience investigating gunrunning and other crimes for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). One of the many questions I wanted to answer in my book The Future of the Gun is where criminals really get guns. Department of Justice, more than 100 people had been charged with illegal firearm trafficking and straw purchasing. Gun traffickers transfer guns from legal commerce to illegal commerce and are considered to be violent criminals.
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- As described in our summary on Universal Background Checks, federal law only requires licensed dealers, and not unlicensed private sellers, to conduct background checks on purchasers and maintain records of sales.
- The Biden administration has separately proposed a rule that would require thousands more gun sellers to get licensed and run background checks.
- Accessing them may require .onion links and the Tor browser, but caution is advised due to legality and cybersecurity risks.
- Researchers from the 5 live Investigates team successfully accessed the dark web, and made a purchase of the hallucinogen DMT – a class A drug, ranking it on a par with heroin and cocaine.
- Online purchases of drugs are often delivered to a mailbox or a “dead drop” location, or sellers utilize mail services or international trade networks.
- Analysing the ‘supplier ID’ for an indication of the country of origin (e.g. ‘balkanweapons’, ‘dutchmarket’ and ‘USuser’).
These included small arms, such as, pistols, assault rifles, grenades, Claymores, knives, machetes, etc. Larger weapons such as missiles, light machine guns, mortars, anti-tank missiles, tanks, and planes were also used. Leader of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, Charles Taylor, helped to create the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone. Taylor was the recipient of thousands of illegally trafficked arms from eastern Europe (mostly Ukraine).
Where Do Criminals Really Get Their Guns?
Ransomware and cryptocurrency-based crimes saw a significant increase in 2023, with a nearly $176 million rise compared to 2022. As of 2020, nearly 57% of the dark web was estimated to contain illegal content, including violence and extremist platforms. An extra layer of secrecy is added to the dark web by the use of Bitcoins – an electronic currency which is used legitimately by online gamers, but which can be used by criminals to mask their financial transactions. Users often do not know the real identity of the fellow users they are dealing with, and it is very difficult – although not impossible – for authorities to track them. Out of reach of regular internet searches is the secretive online world known as the ‘dark web’ – anonymous, virtually untraceable global networks used by political activists and criminals alike.
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Supreme Court is considering a lawsuit brought by Mexico against American gun manufacturers over their alleged complicity in weapons smuggling at the border. Snopes readers also asked via email whether Ukraine sold American weapons on the black market or to various militant or criminal groups, including Hamas, Syrian rebel groups and Mexican drug cartels. Winkel says years of sales records are already kept by retailers, and yet authorities aren’t effectively using that information to quickly flag straw buyers. “For whatever reason, the amount of time it takes for law enforcement to identify a straw person is too long.” Among the more notable cases is Justin Green, a former philosophy student at the University of Toronto, who legally purchased 23 handguns over the course of 22 months starting in 2011, including as many as 15 from a single location, and then illegally resold them. That same year, Andrew Winchester purchased 47 handguns in the Greater Toronto Area over the course of six months, selling them on the illegal market for as much as $100,000.
Unlicensed Dealers And Black Market Guns
The spa mass shooting case went to Wisconsin’s Supreme Court, which ruled that Armslist was protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the same law that grants websites like Facebook, Google, and Twitter immunity from liability for content or comments posted by users. Villarreal had “knowledge of guns,” court records say, and while he made his home in the Texas city of McAllen, he had family on the other side of the border in Reynosa, which has long been plagued by drug cartel violence. In September 2020, seven guns that Villarreal flipped turned up at crime scenes in Reynosa. It has built a reputation for being a reliable source of stolen credit card data and PII. Renowned for its extensive inventory of financial data and sophisticated operating methods, Brian’s Club is a key player in the underground economy of financial cybercrime. It is a hub for financial cybercrime and offers a wide range of illicit services and stolen data that cater to sophisticated cybercriminals.
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A few sites offer mostly similar weapons found in gun stores or gun re-sellers found around the United States. Other sites advertise military-grade weapons that are typically not available to civilians, including anti-tank guided munitions (ATGMs), e.g. Securely buy guns online today without revealing your identity and shop with confidence on the dark web. The data shows that people who “illegally traffic firearms, whether it’s out of a trunk, at a gun show or online, are responsible for real violence in this nation,” including hundreds of shootings, said ATF Director Steve Dettelbach.
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We offer free shipping worldwide, with 100% anonymous and secure delivery options. You can receive your package at any address, including GPS coordinates, parks, shopping centers, or PO Boxes. Accessing them may require .onion links and the Tor browser, but caution is advised due to legality and cybersecurity risks. Cybersecurity experts should pay close attention to these trends, as they often indicate emerging threats and profit-generating tactics among the cybercriminal forums.

Illicit firearms also contribute to political conflict and instability in South Africa, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe. The second-highest share of firearm-trafficking cases investigated by ATF was straw purchases, when someone buys a gun for a person who can’t get it legally themselves. Increased oversight of gun dealers is critical to prevent irresponsible and dangerous transfers of firearms. Giffords Law Center works in all 50 states to change policies and challenge injustice. We won’t rest until every state has strong gun safety laws and every community is free from the fear of gun violence. Five of the seven Reynosa guns had a “time-to-crime” of one week or less, the ATF found, meaning only a matter of days passed between Pond buying the weapons in the U.S. and they turned up in Mexico.

From untraceable 3D-printed weapons to sophisticated smuggling networks, the black market for guns operates on a scale that is difficult to measure but impossible to ignore. The guns were used in 368 shooting cases, which are harder to investigate because unlicensed dealers aren’t required to keep records of their sales that could allow federal agents to trace the weapon back to the original buyer, said ATF Director Steve Dettelbach. The ATF special agent in charge said when federal law enforcement ramped up gun trafficking efforts in border cities, the cartels started looking north to the DFW area for straw buyers.
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The second-highest share of firearm-trafficking cases investigated by ATF was straw purchases, when someone buys a gun for a person who can’t get it legally themselves. According to one federal official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, “ghost guns” or “self-made firearms” have become an especially prominent cause for concern in recent years, despite being perfectly legal for law-abiding citizens. Reports from Ukraine Oversight, a U.S. government website tracking military assistance, indicate that while some weapons have gone missing in combat zones, there is no evidence of significant black market sales at the level Carlson suggests. A vocal critic of U.S. support for Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s unprovoked invasion, Carlson provided no evidence to support his claim. Expressing disbelief, he remarked, “Everything about this war is a lie,” and reacted with alarm to his own allegations, stating, “They’re selling weapons to drug cartels? Are you kidding? This is a nightmare.”