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US guns make up as much as 60 percent of the weapons on sale on the dark web, new research has found.
Weapons, drugs and stolen identities are readily available on the dark web market web, a . To investigate where guns, dark darknet market link ammunition and guides to their use come from, the UK's University of Manchester and think tank Rand Europe scoured 12 dark web marketplaces -- or cryptomarkets -- and found 811 listings relevant to the study, published Wednesday.
Most weapons were from the USA, where gun control is a divisive issue, and most sales were destined for darkmarket 2024 Europe. A gun bought from the dark market onion web was used in a terrorist attack in Munich in 2016.
"The dark web is both an enabler for the trade of illegal weapons already on the black darknet market and a potential source of diversion for weapons legally owned", said Giacomo Persi Paoli, darknet marketplace the report's lead author. "The ability for criminals and terrorists, as well as vulnerable or fixated individuals, to make virtually anonymous purchases is perhaps the most dangerous aspect."
On Thursday, US and European law enforcement agencies announced the shutdown of AlphaBay and Hansa, two of the three largest dark websites web darknet markets onion.