D Walden 
The Economic-Financial Police Unit of Naples, as part of an investigation coordinated by the Public Prosecutor’s Office at the Juvenile Court of the Neapolitan capital, dismantled a criminal group consisting of 9 subjects, all very young, who were organizing a hashish and marijuana trade via the internet and in cryptocurrency.
It was the specialists of the Anti-Drug Section of the Organized Crime Investigation Group who, by analyzing the content of the conversations found on the smartphone of one of them, reconstructed 10 episodes of drug purchases, between June 2016 and June 2017.
In particular, the suspects, minors at the time, were using the dark web to buy drugs, using cryptocurrency bitcoin, to conceal the traceability of payments.
The narcotic then arrived at its destination through a shipping company – completely unrelated to illegal traffic – which delivered the packages to special hubs within commercial establishments authorized to collect the goods.
The dark web is the dark side of the internet that can be accessed with a special browser that makes the connection anonymous and untraceable thanks to the use of sophisticated ecryption. This speacial browser is called “Tor”.
Within the dark web it is possible to enter dark markets to trade any type of illegal goods (drugs, weapons, drugs, passports and false documents, pornography) and the data is encrypted in such a way that makes it impossible for both the buyer and seller to be identified by anyone.
Furthermore, anonymity is guaranteed by virtual forms of payment, strictly in bitcoin, which are only released to seller upon receipt of the product.
Virtual currencies, generally using decentralized networks, are not electronic money and are not subject to controls by central banks or public authorities allowing the flow of uncontrolled transactions.
