Dark Markets: Ukraine's Weapons Bunkers Being Sold On Darknets

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Journos spend BTC on people selling pictures of weapons and lolcats...


Are US Weapons Supplied To Ukraine Ending Up On DarkNet Marketplaces?

https://www.rt.com/news/558263-ukraine-western-weapons-darknet/

The lack of oversight for billions of dollars in US weapons pumped
into Ukraine has concerned the Pentagon. They're worried about
anti-tank missiles and explosive drones ending up in the "wrong
hands."

A new investigation allegedly found some of these weapons are being
sold on the dark web.

RT journalists pretended to be weapons buyers and claimed to have come
in contact with Ukrainian arms smugglers offering machine guns, body
armor, and some of the US/West's most advanced weapons, such as
Javelin and NLAW anti-tank systems or Phoenix Ghost and Switchblade
explosive drones.

The journalist said one darknet marketplace had a Phoenix Ghost
loitering munition listed for $4,000.

 Another Ukrainian arms smuggler offered US-made body armor sets for
$1,500 and M4 carbines with suppressors and hundreds of 5.56×45mm NATO
rounds for $2,400 per set.

Besides US weapons, Ukrainian arms smugglers were selling British-made
NLAW anti-tank systems for $15,000. Acquiring the anti-tank weapon
legally would cost between $30,000 to $40,000.

Since the journalist never completed transactions with the sellers, RT
said, "it's not possible to completely rule out that the sellers
actually did not have the said weapons in stock, as the RT
investigators did not complete the purchase. Scamming schemes are
common for dark web marketplaces."

As early as April, US officials began admitting that once Javelin
anti-tank weapons cross into Ukraine, they have no idea where they go
from there.

One intelligence source told CNN:

    "We have fidelity for a short time, but when it enters the fog of
war, we have almost zero. It drops into a big black hole, and you have
almost no sense of it after a short time."

The European police agency Europol has also warned about the massive
amount of weapons being pumped from the West into Ukraine. Once the
weapons hit the ground, there's no tracking the weapons from there,
and some end up in criminal gangs' hands.

    "The weapons from this war are still being used by criminal groups
today," Europol Director Catherine De Bolle told the German newspaper
Welt am Sonntag in June.

Last Thursday, the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency
(DSCA) issued a statement urging US military leaders to send weapons
inspectors into the war-torn country to monitor where the billions of
dollars in arms are being handed out.

RT's investigation sheds important light on the Pentagon's worst fears
of high-tech weapons ending up in the wrong hands and some of the
weapons for sale on the darknet. There may never be oversight and
accountability of the weapons on the ground because, as the NYTimes
recently said, the CIA has had a presence on the battlefield since the
start of the invasion. When it comes to the CIA's covert arms
programs, they usually like to keep where the weapons are being sent a
secret.