Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime

• Dethroning BigBoss: The Fall of Archetyp

  Inspired by the ethos of Silk Road and the lifespans of Agora and Dream Market, a new player emerged from the shadows of Tor in 2020: Archetyp. Built on promises of security, usability, and “ethical” standards, the marketplace steadily grew while rivals rose and fell. By 2025 it served ≈ 600 000 users, ≈ 3 000 vendors, and had moved ≈ €250 million in illicit transactions.We trace the founder—known as “Yoshi” (BigBossChefOfArchetyp)—and his obsessive focus on operational security. Archetyp required Monero‑only payments, leveraged PGP encryption, offered auto‑encryption of shipping data, ran an anti‑phishing sandbox (“jail”), and used rotating Tor mirrors to stay online.Beyond the tech, the market stood out for its sleek UI, step‑by‑step guides, powerful search filters, and even built‑in games—making it the “beauty queen” of darknet markets.Relentless DDoS attacks smothered Archetyp’s fifth‑birthday celebration. Shortly afterward, Yoshi vanished from the forums and an ominous “maintenance” screen replaced the home page—blank and static. A few days later a graphic‑novel‑style video surfaced online, announcing that the market had been seized.Operation Deep Sentinel—a coordinated sweep led by Germany’s BKA and backed by Europol, Eurojust, Dutch, Spanish, Romanian, Swedish, and U.S. agencies—hit in June 2025. Within days the Dutch data centre was seized, a 30‑year‑old German administrator was arrested in Barcelona, and €7.8 million in cash, crypto and hardware vanished into police evidence lockers.As the front page flickered to a seizure banner, frantic posts flooded the Dread forum. The darknet community, hardened by previous busts, scattered—but the question remains: Can law enforcement ever stay ahead of the ever‑evolving dark‑web trade?Speakers:Sarah Fares, Analyst at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.Louise Ferret, Lead Threat Intelligence Analyst at Searchlight Cyber.Article:An Archetypal drug market: Despite the dismantling of dark web drug market Archetyp, illicit marketplaces reassemble faster than they fallAdditional Links:Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized CrimeSearchlight CyberResearch...

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• Living Together: The Gangs of Haiti - Part 3: "Wake Up! The Bandits Are Coming!"

  Part 3 - "Wake Up! The Bandits Are Coming!"At the end of March this year, officers from the Kenyan-led Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS) responded to a request for assistance when an armoured Haitian National Police vehicle became stuck in a ditch near Pont-Sondé in Artibonite. The ditch was believed to have been dug by a local gang.As the MSS officers arrived to help, they were ambushed by armed men, allegedly from the Gran Grif gang. During the firefight, three armoured vehicles were set on fire, and one MSS officer went missing, presumed killed. This incident marked the second casualty for the Kenyans in about a month.The MSS was deployed to Haiti to help stabilize the security situation and combat the growing power of gangs. Unfortunately, since their arrival, the MSS has faced the same challenges as the Haitian National Police: a lack of manpower, inadequate equipment, and insufficient funding. The gangs continue to maintain the upper hand.Meanwhile, the humanitarian situation in Haiti continues to deteriorate.In the final part of this series on Haiti, we will explore the challenges facing the Haitian National Police, the fall of beleaguered Prime Minister Ariel Henry, the rising confidence of the Viv Ansanm gang, the arrival and difficulties encountered by MSS officers, and the escalating humanitarian disaster in the country.SpeakersJacqueline Charles, Haiti/Caribbean Correspondent, Miami Herald. Widlore Merancourt, Editor-in-chief for Ayibopost & reporter for the Washington Post on its Haiti coverageWilliam (Bill) G. O'Neill, UN Independent Expert on the Human Rights Situation in Haiti Romain Le Cour Grandmaison, Senior Expert, Global Initiative against Transnational Organized CrimeSophie Rutenbar, Visiting scholar at the New York University Center on International CooperationGITOC LinksThe GI-TOC Observatory of Violence and Resilience in HaitiHaiti, caught between political paralysis and escalating violence - https://globalinitiative.net/analysis/haiti-caught-between-political-paralysis-and-escalating-violence/Kenya’s High Court blocks proposal to send police support to Haiti - https://globalinitiative.net/analysis/kenyas-high-court-blocks-proposal-police-support-haiti/Will the Artibonite massacre be a turning point in Haiti - https://globalinitiative.net/analysis/artibonite-massacre-haiti/Gangs of Haiti: Expansion, power and an escalating crisis - https://globalinitiative.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/GITOC-Gangs-of-Haiti.pdfViolence in Haiti: A continuation of politics by other means? - https://globalinitiative.net/analysis/violence-in-haiti-politics-crime-gangs/Additional...

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• Living Together: The Gangs of Haiti - Part 2: Fighting Back

  Part 2 - 'Fighting Back'In 2022, a video emerged of an alleged senior gang member, Zo Pwason, who had been caught by an armed group of Haitian citizens, led by Commissioner Jean-Ernest Muscadin. Zo Pwason was allegedly a senior member of the 5 Segond gang. He was executed by the armed group.Muscadin declared that “As long as I am government commissioner, the city of Miragoâne will remain a cemetery for bandits”.In this episode we look at those citizens that have fought back against the growing power of the gangs, and the emergence of the 'Bwa Kale' movement in 2023. These self-defence or vigilante groups protect their neighbourhoods from the gangs, and target suspected gang members.We'll discuss how the gangs control areas through violence, limiting movement and the frequent targeting women and girls.But we'll also follow on from the last episode and explore the connections to other illicit markets like drugs and people smuggling, as well as the proliferation of firearms flowing into the country, the vast majority of which come from the US.And finally, we'll discuss the previous scandal-ridden recent UN mission to the country.SpeakersJacqueline Charles, Haiti/Caribbean Correspondent, Miami Herald. Widlore Merancourt, Editor-in-chief for Ayibopost & reporter for the Washington Post on its Haiti coverageWilliam (Bill) G. O'Neill, UN Independent Expert on the Human Rights Situation in Haiti Romain Le Cour Grandmaison, Senior Expert, Global Initiative against Transnational Organized CrimeSophie Rutenbar, Visiting scholar at the New York University Center on International CooperationGITOC LinksThe GI-TOC Observatory of Violence and Resilience in HaitiWill the Artibonite massacre be a turning point in Haiti - https://globalinitiative.net/analysis/artibonite-massacre-haiti/Gangs of Haiti: Expansion, power and an escalating crisis - https://globalinitiative.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/GITOC-Gangs-of-Haiti.pdfViolence in Haiti: A continuation of politics by other means? - https://globalinitiative.net/analysis/violence-in-haiti-politics-crime-gangs/Additional...

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• Living Together: The Gangs of Haiti - Part 1: The Death of a President

  Part 1 - "The Death of a President"In July 2021, the President of Haiti, Jovenel Moïse, was assassinated as he slept at home by a band of mercenaries. His murder sparked a wave of violent protests and a period of unprecedented crisis in the small Caribbean nation that the country has still yet to address nearly four years later.For a long time, violent gangs were used by politicians to win elections, harass political opponents and stamp out opposition. But the political vacuum and ensuing chaos after the death of the President has seen their power grow immensely. They have committed horrendous atrocities against the population that control and each other.Massacres, extortion, mass rape, looting, and blockades have brought about a situation where gangs control an estimated 90% of the capital Port-au-Prince. It has created a humanitarian situation of catastrophic proportions, as over one-million Haitians have been internally displaced as a result of the violence.In Part 1 of Living Together: The Gangs of Haiti, we chart the fallout from the President's murder, the brutal expansion of the gangs power and influence, as well as the relationship between political and economic actors with those same gangs.SpeakersJacqueline Charles, Haiti/Caribbean Correspondent, Miami Herald. Widlore Merancourt, Editor-in-chief for Ayibopost & reporter for the Washington Post on its Haiti coverageWilliam (Bill) G. O'Neill, UN Independent Expert on the Human Rights Situation in Haiti Romain Le Cour Grandmaison, Senior Expert, Global Initiative against Transnational Organized CrimeGITOC LinksThe GI-TOC Observatory of Violence and Resilience in HaitiWill the Artibonite massacre be a turning point in Haiti - https://globalinitiative.net/analysis/artibonite-massacre-haiti/Gangs of Haiti: Expansion, power and an escalating crisis - https://globalinitiative.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/GITOC-Gangs-of-Haiti.pdfViolence in Haiti: A continuation of politics by other means? - https://globalinitiative.net/analysis/violence-in-haiti-politics-crime-gangs/Additional...

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• Drugs, Dead Drops and the Battle Over Russian Darknet Markets

  If you were to walk around a Russian city, you might not realise it but hundreds of small packages of drugs, could be just below the surface, buried in the ground, or maybe attached to the back of a nearby drainpipe with magnets, or hidden inside a hole in a wall. These little "treasures" have been ordered online from a vendor operating on a darknet platform and then hidden by couriers known as 'Kladmen' all over the place waiting to be collected - this is the "dead drop" method.The darknet markets servicing Russia have revolutionized the illicit drug markets in the country, which has seen an explosion in the consumption of synthetic drugs like methadone, mephedrone or Alpha-PVP. The vendors run a network of chemists, wholesalers, and Kladmen. Sportsman, hired thugs, roam around looking for Seagulls (people who steal dead drops) and punishing Kladmen on behalf of vendors, before uploading the punishments to social media as a warning to others.For many years, Hydra, the largest DNM the world has ever known, defeated all competition and reigned supreme, handling over $5 billion dollars of cryptocurrency during its lifespan. But in 2022, it was taken down and like the mythical beast it was named after, new heads sprouted in its place - OMG!OMG!, Mega, Kraken, Blacksprut - all vying for position, competing for market share and creating the most audacious public marketing stunts and highly produced online videos. The DNMs, with connections to the precursor markets of China and India, operate on TOR, have pushed synthetic drugs into all corners of Russia, democratizing the production process, with how-to guides and readily available lab equipment, and even created an apprenticeship scheme for prospective Kladmen, with a guaranteed job at the end. The whole process is highly anonymised from production to transportation, and from purchase to delivery through the dead drop method. We have seen darknet markets affecting the drug appetites of an entire nation and beyond. Speaker(s):Max Daly, Journalist who specialises in drugs and organized crime. He is an Orwell Prize winner, co-authored of the book Narcomania and the co-author of the GITOC paper 'Breaking Klad: Russia’s Dead Drop Drug Revolution'.Patrick Shortis, Senior Blockchain Intelligence Analyst working on the illicit drugs program at TRM Labs and co-author of the GI’s paper ‘Breaking Klad: Russia’s Dead Drop Drug Revolution’.Links:Breaking Klad: Russia’s Dead Drop Drug RevolutionGlobal Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime(Podcast) “Death Can Wait”: Drugs on the Frontline in Ukraine Additional...

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