Darknet Marketplace Snapshot Series: Dark Empire Market

September 26, 2024

In DarkOwl’s Darknet Marketplace Snapshot blog series, our researchers provide short-form insight into a variety of darknet marketplaces: looking for trends, exploring new marketplaces, examining admin and vendor activities, and offering a host of insights into this transient and often criminal corner of the internet. This edition features Dark Empire Market.

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Introduction

Darknet marketplaces (DNMs) are synonymous with where on the dark web users can buy and sell illicit goods.

Traditional DNMs are defined as dark or deep web sites where numerous (often hundreds) vendors can sell various types of products ranging from drugs, digital goods, leaked databases, counterfeit documents, credit cards, etc. The most popular traditional DNMs that remain today are:

Ares Market
Archetyp Market
MGM Grand Market
Dark Empire Market

DISCLAIMER: Please note that this list specifically excludes any forum that also has a marketplace section like XSS or Exploit, as well as marketplaces that specialize in one product category like digital goods on Russian Market.

As we continue our Darknet Marketplace snapshot series we will review Dark Empire Market, one of the most popular marketplaces available on the darknet today.  In our last snapshot, we explored Ares Market.

Dark Empire Market

Dark Empire Market’s name is sometimes confused with Dark Market or Empire Market, which were both darknet markets which have been seized by law enforcement. This highlights a trend that darknet admins have to sometimes create new sites with intentionally misleading names that are similar to defunct DNMs, whether to gain popularity or to make it easier for previous customers to find them.

Dark Empire Market appears to have originally surfaced in early 2021, based on the earliest results that are still viewable on the site. However, its popularity increased shortly after the Bohemia, Hydra, and Monopoly markets were seized in early 2023. DarkOwl’s Vision database to date has over 19,000 results pertaining to Dark Empire Market. There is very little open-source information available to provide more information on the history of this site and its admins. In fact, when you search for this site, most results are related to the now defunct Empire Market. Additionally, it has not gained particular attention from the media meaning there is little information in relation to it. However, it has been previously mentioned on sites like Reddit, Dread, and Ransomlook.io.

Homepage

The below screenshot displays Dark Empire Market’s Homepage. This includes the logo, followed by various topics, and a disclaimer and banner advertisement. This is a format that we commonly see on other traditional DNMs.

Additionally, credentials are not required to view content on this site, which is uncommon on most DNMs. Therefore, it is a good site to explore if you do not want to create credentials and/or are new to the darknet. It is usually uncommon for darknet sites to allow you to view products on their sites without eventually facing a paywall.

  Underneath is a visual display of the various product categories:

Counterfeits
Credit Cards
Documents
Drugs
Gadgets
Gift Cards
Guns
Money Transfers
Other

The site claims to offer worldwide shipping, it states every vendor sells worldwide.

It also provides escrow services and advertises for individuals to become a vendor on the site.  They provide an email that can be used for any enquiries or issues – offering full customer support to the users on the site.

Counterfeits

Counterfeit goods are products that are made to imitate genuine items with the intention of deceiving others. They can be used for financial crime, identify theft, as well as counterfeit goods. Counterfeiting can range from physical documents like licenses and passports to counterfeit cash (euros and dollars).

The counterfeiting category on Dark Empire Market primarily advertises counterfeit financial products. Currently there are 12 actives listings, and the below screenshot shows 3 financial counterfeit products.

Looking a step further, DarkOwl analysts reviewed one of the products. The below screenshot is one of the above products and advertises as, “Pre-Shredded Cash 25,000 USD Cash” and is for sale for $999.00, which was discounted from an original price of $2,100.00 USD. The vendor claims these US dollars came from the Federal Reserve in 2017. The vendor self identifies as “The Queens Cash aka queencdcguev” in the below description.

It is not uncommon for vendors to use snark or humor in their advertisements, below we provide some real FAQs that are provided by the vendors.

 The FAQs also highlight why the vendor can be trusted. Reviews are what most DNMs rely on to ensure that they are receiving the products that they are buying. A lot of the time the products for sale sound too good to be true. This is usually because they are. But as demonstrated below vendors will try to explain why they have received bad reviews.

Credit Cards 

Many DNMs sell cloned or stolen credit cards. The Credit Cards category on this market has a total of 22 listings. Most of the listings advertise access, credit card fraud aka carding products. Most of these products advertise access to Visa, Mastercard, and American Express Credit Cards and Gift Cards. The below screenshot displays 3 Credit Cards listings. It appears these listings advertise pre-paid Visa and Mastercard Gift Cards.

 The below screenshots display a recent product listing titled, “3 x AMEX Prepaid 3100$ / 2700 Euros,” which is allegedly selling for $299.00 USD. The product description continues to explain that there is a daily withdrawal limit of $3500.00 USD. Additionally, the vendor claims that after purchase they will send a printed guide of how to “safely cash out” via parcel service.

 Guns

There are a total number of 35 listings under the Guns category. Most of the products are for guns and or ammunition. The below displays a few of the products. Product pricing ranges from 200.00 USD to over 1000.00 USD. The images posted on the site have the onion URL over them, presumably so they cannot be shared on other sites.

DarkOwl analysts selected the following product titled, “Bushmaster AR15 Tactical Package Semi Auto Rifle.” The product has a 5-star rating and there are 35 customer reviews for this vendor. The product description meticulously explains the technical specs of this weapon.

Below is a chat that appears below the product description. Most prospective buyers are inquiring with the vendor to confirm if they ship to a particular country. The below shows buyers asking about if they can safely send the weapon to the Dominican Republic, Australia, Turkey, Sweden, and others. Every time the vendor responds saying “Yes worldwide” or “Yes without problems.” It is unclear what shipping methods this vendor is using. Although some other vendors state that they use FedEx and FedEx international to ship overseas.

As stated above there are other areas and goods that are sold on this market. Drugs are another area of the site which appears to be popular. There are currently 50 listings in this section, second only to gadgets, which sells products such as phones and computers. A range of different drugs are made available and a varying range of prices. Some of them have discounts applied. Most of the listings have over 4.5 stars.

One seller, providing cocaine claims to be the most trusted seller in the world, who used the best packaging to ensure “stealth and security.” There are many comments stating that they have successfully received the drugs.

Dark Empire Market is currently online and operating. It highlights the variety of goods that can be sold and the methods which they use to ship these goods worldwide. It also gives insight into how the vendors operate and how they explain their products and the reviews that they receive.

During our next blog in this series of DNM reviews we will look at Archetyp Market.