Report Shows Italian Mafia Has Adapted to cryptocurrency and the Dark Web

Italian mafia organizations, particularly the country's most powerful criminal group 'Ndrangheta, are increasingly adapting to modern tools such as cryptocurrencies and the dark web, the Italian Anti-Mafia Agency (DIA) said in its latest report covering the first half of 2020.

The anonymity offered by the online dark web marketplace is particularly valuable to criminals in this new crown epidemic epidemic, as many conventional smuggling and distribution networks have been shut down due to social isolation measures.

"Special attention should then be paid to the emergence of synthetic drugs, the sale of which is also spread through the "dark web," a more flexible tool for use in the current New Crown epidemic, and which can be delivered anonymously via cryptocurrency." The report said.

The term deep or dark web refers to a layer of the Internet that is usually not accessible through conventional search engines such as Google, Yahoo or bing.

An official from the Italian police's anti-mafia unit, who declined to be named, told German media outlet Die Zeit that mafia groups have made particular use of the cryptocurrencies Bitcoin and Monero.

"All criminal organizations, including mafia types, are interested in using these tools for their business," he reportedly said."

In several cases, Italian authorities have arrested suspects who used untraceable bitcoins to buy drugs, Die Zeit reported.

Authorities discovered earlier this year that people were turning to the dark web for more than just drugs, and in April, Italian police arrested a 40-year-old man who had tried to hire a hit man to cause serious harm to his ex-girlfriend.

The man had also tried to use cryptocurrency to pay for the services of a possible hitman. In a similar case in 2019, an American woman paid $12,000 worth of bitcoin to a dark web entity called Sicilian Hitman International for the murder of the wife of one of her cheating boyfriends.

While Sicilian mafia groups like Cosa Nostra are familiar with the dark web, it is unlikely that they offer assassination services through the dark web and that the site is simply a scam.