Crypto drug traffickers caught in South Korea

South Korean police has captured nine people, all in their 20s and 30s, who used cryptocurrencies to sell drugs. Those drugs were sold through an underground forum on the dark net, owned by a man called Shin. The dealers used a cryptocurrency called DarkCoin on at least 50 drug trades, according to The Korea Herald.

DarkCoin (DARK) itself is a very small coin. Since early this year its value went up toward $0.004 cents, while seeing dips towards $0.002 and pumps up to $0.006. However, the coin’s connection with the darknet isn’t online in its name.

DarkCoin is closely tied to illegal trading. It offers an option called DarkSend, which combines transactions and shuffles them. This making tracing the original sender impossible. That’s why the coin is tied to the darkweb.

DarkCoin is accepted on a deep web weapon marketplace called The Armory. Also coffee bean and medicated edibles business DarkNet Roasters accepts DARK as a payment option. No wonder drugs are also being traded using the coin.

The drug dealers are accused of growing cannabis, selling hashish, LSD and MDMA. These drugs have come into Korea from other countries. The police is keeping 100 million won ($88.700) generated from the drug trade. It’s not the cryptocurrency that got them caught, but another element in their operation.

DARK is currently being traded on Cryptopia.

Originally published at NEDEROB.