Dark web hashish seller arrested on the Costa del Sol

ONE of the most active online sellers of hashish has been arrested in Mijas. 

National police say the man combined three technologies – the ‘dark web’, Bitcoin and the TOR anonymous navigation system to try to hide his criminal activities. 
A police operation has been running since early 2018 to investigate online retailers who use different crypto markets to distribute drugs. 

These drug traffickers have specialised in the online sale of drugs through the ‘dark web’ which makes it difficult to investigate and locate them. 
In the crypto market, these drug traffickers have a rating system through which they create reputations, both from buyers and sellers, and chatrooms (IRC) and discussion forums for information exchange. 
The highly sophisticated operations work like legitimate online markets –  they have access to a list of products, the sales ranking, the ‘reputation’ of each product, and the country of the seller. This is because through the system only local sellers are allowed. 
The investigation led to the arrest of the man in Mijas at the time he was connected to the dark web. 

Police seized two kilos of hashish prepared for distribution in small packages, two computers, a telephone, envelopes and packaging material, a vacuum packing machine and tools for cutting and weighing. 
The operation remains open while police try to identify and locate more than 60 online retailers using the system.