Darknet Marketplace Snapshot Series: MGM Grand Market

November 14, 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.

Don’t forget to subscribe to our blog at the bottom of this page to be notified as new blogs are published.

Introduction

Darknet marketplaces (DNMs) are synonymous with the dark web where users can buy and sell illicit goods. It began with the Farmer’s Market, followed by the more prolific Silk Road. Ever since Silk Road was taken down by law enforcement, different markets have jostled for supremacy. As such, DNMs are some of the most recognized features of the dark web.  

Recently law enforcement has improved its ability to seize darknet marketplaces (DNMs), meaning that the vendors must migrate to new sites. There have also been several exit scams from marketplaces with the admins closing the site and taking the funds that are held in escrow. 

This is DarkOwl’s third blog in a series dedicated to reviewing the most popular darknet marketplaces (DNMs) since Kingdom, Incognito, and Bohemia marketplaces were seized by law enforcement. We will explore the various sorts of products regularly sold and well as how much the product pricing can vary within or between product categories.  

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.

Our first two blogs focused on Ares & Dark Empire Market. Today we will review MGM Grand Market.

 MGM Grand Market

MGM Grand has gained more popularity as several marketplaces have shut down since 2023. According to open-source research, 10 DNMs have shut down since 2023 either due to law enforcement seizures or exit scams. The following markets are listed as having closed down in 2024.

Genesis Market
TOR Market
Vice City Market
ASAP Market
Tor2Door Market
Royal Market
Kingdom Market
Bohemia Market
Incognito Market
Nemesis Market

MGM Grand Market originally surfaced in April 2021 and has quickly become one of the most talked about DNMs on Dread along with Archetyp Market (which we will cover in our next blog on this topic) .

According to DarkOwl’s Vision, we have over 11,600 results pertaining to MGM Grand Market. DarkOwl first saw MGM Grand mentioned on the popular darknet hacking forum, Dread, in January 2022, when a Dread user created a post rating various vendors on the site. DarkOwl has since seen “MGM Grand” mentioned on this forum at least 364 times. Typically, Dread users discuss experiences with marketplace vendors:

Recently DarkOwl analysts discovered a Dread user asking which DNM is best for carding or credit card fraud. One user responded, “MGM Grand is decent, but make sure it has escrow bc some vendors don’t have it enabled.”

MGM Grand Market allows transactions to be processed using only Bitcoin (BTC), which is unique. Most DNMs allow transactions in BTC as well as other cryptocurrencies such as Monero, Litecoin, Ethereum, and Dash. Additionally, DarkOwl analysts have increasingly seen other currencies like Tether also being used on the darknet.

Homepage

The below screenshot displays MGM Grand Market’s Homepage. MGM Grand’s site format is familiar because it resembles the format of search engines like DuckDuckGo and Google: including a search bar, popular topics, site logo, and design.

Credentials are required to log in and view content, but the registration process is simple. It requires a username, password, pin, and completing a simple captcha.

Underneath the search bar is an overview of MGM Grand’s most popular product categories including:

Fraud (2364 Listings)
Drugs (5599 Listings)
Digital Goods (2261 Listings)
Guides & Tutorials (2121 Listings)
Miscellaneous (996 Listings)

 Currently there is a total of 13,341 product listings. The drugs section currently contains the most product listings, while Miscellaneous contains the fewest listings.

Fraud

The fraud category on MGM Grand Market offers a wide range of fraud products from bank accounts, credit cards, fintech accounts, leaked databases, and more. Currently there are 2364 product listings, and the below screenshot previews 3 products.

Verified Bank Drops, $600.00 USD
USA leaked CCN + personal details, $35.00 USD
Western Union Cashout Methodology, $3.25 USD

Looking a step further, a review of the content on one of the posts which is advertised as, “Verified Bank Drops EU/US Crypto Exchanges Fast Delivery + Custom Name Accounts” and is for sale for $600.00. The vendor claims they are selling a “fully verified” sumup.com account with Ireland IBAN and Kraken Crypto Exchange Account info including all personal account details. This product received a 4.5 Star rating, despite showing “0 sold” at the time of review.

This vendor further alleges they can also sell bank account details for various banks, money transfer services, and crypto currency exchanges, the below is a list of financial institutions the vendor claims to be able to provide access to.

Drugs

The drugs category on MGM Grand offers a wide variety of illicit narcotics and prescription drugs such as cocaine, Ritalin, Xanax, LSD, and more. Currently there are a total of 5599 drug listings on this market. The below displays a preview of these listings:

Speed Paste Amphetamine, $1.07 USD
Cocaine, $40.00 USD
Xanax, $1.60 USD

Digital Goods

The Digital Goods category has a total 2261 listings. Products range from accounts for sale, e-books, malware, RDP, gift cards, and more.

The above screenshot previews 3 common products under the Digital Goods category including:

2024 ANY COUNTRY RDP server, $35.00 USD
10x Live and active socks5, $28.00 USD
Live RDP Remote Desktop Protocol – 2 months Access. $50.00 USD

DarkOwl analysts selected one product (see below screenshots) to further examine. The below product is a large collection of hacking tools ranging from RATs, cracking tools, fake emails, keyloggers, VPNs, DDOS tools, etc., which the vendor, Safety1st, alleges is worth over $12,000.00 USD, but is generously offering this “mega pack” for $3.26 per each tool. According to the description this vendor has so far sold 1 product and accepts escrow. The vendor also has received a 5-star rating.

A full list of the hacking tools available from this vendor is shown below:

Guides & Tutorials

“How to” guides and methodology tutorials are some of the most sold products across the darknet. There are a total of 2,122 products listed under MGM Grand’s Guides & Tutorials section. The content of these guides varies greatly from how to grow weed, how to hack a phone, how to deploy infostealer malware, how to create a counterfeit id, etc.

The products listed in the above screenshot are:

The Drug Users Bible, $3.25 USD
Hydroponic Heroin How To Grow Opium Poppies Without Soil, $3.25
Buy Anonymous SIM Cards Worldwide – Anon Phone SIM Card, $3.25

Miscellaneous

Miscellaneous product categories exist on most DNMs, but the product listings are quite random and sometimes contain porn and other NSFW (not safe for work) content. However, MGM Grand has included counterfeit ids, money, and services under this category. There are currently a total of 966 products listed under Miscellaneous on MGM Grand Market. DarkOwl analysts have shared a preview of a few products below and their prices:

Updated Counterfeit Money Bible (Fake Euro & Dollar), $6.51 USD
Mixing Bitcoin Service – We Mix Clean Your BTC – Bitcoins Cleaning, $10.86 USD
Generate Unlimited Mobile Phone Numbers of Any Country, $3.26 USD

MGM Grand Market is a popular destination for those looking to purchase fraud products, digital goods, drugs, tutorials, counterfeit ids/currency, and more. MGM Grand’s popularity is expected to continue increasing as more marketplaces shutdown either due to law enforcement seizures or exit scams. During our next blog in this series of DNM reviews we will look at Archetyp Market.