Devlin Ciara, Chadwick Scott, Moret Sébastien, Baechler Simon, Rossy Quentin, Morelato Marie
University of Technology Sydney, Centre for Forensic Science, PO Box 123, Broadway, NSW 2007, Australia.
University of Technology Sydney, Centre for Forensic Science, PO Box 123, Broadway, NSW 2007, Australia.
Forensic Sci Int. 2024 Oct;363:112203. doi: 10.1016/j.forsciint.2024.112203. Epub 2024 Aug 22.
From the beginnings of Silk Road in 2011, anonymous online marketplaces have continued to grow despite the best efforts of law enforcement. While these ever-present marketplaces remain flooded with illicit drugs and related paraphernalia, the sale and distribution of fraudulent identity documents remains a persistent problem, with these items consistently appearing for sale on both the open and dark web. While fraudulent Australian documents are some of the most popular products for sale, there is still much that is unknown about the Australian criminal market and its place within anonymous online marketplaces. Given the success of previous research in understanding the illicit drug trade through examining these marketplaces, this work examines two markets to gain an understanding of where Australian document fraud sits within this digital ecosystem. Two anonymous online marketplaces were crawled across 2020 and 2021, White House Market (WHM), and Empire Market. This data was extracted and examined to identify trends within both the international online market and the online market specifically for Australian documents, both of which have been relatively underexplored in the online space. To help illuminate the features of the market, the types of documents for sale, supply and demand trends, and trafficking flows along with vendor-related trends (e.g. product diversification and presence across markets) were examined. Each market was examined individually and then, where possible, comparisons were drawn to gain a more holistic understanding of the online fraudulent document market, with a specific focus on Australian products. Results indicate that, while the fraudulent document portion of the market is small, it is diverse, with numerous different identity-related products for sale, the most common being driver's licences from the United States (U.S.) and Australia, with digital documents dominating the whole marketplace. Overall, the most popular U.S. products were those that could be used to facilitate identity fraud, with the most popular Australian products being driver's licences and ID packs, likely linked to the presence of the 100-point identity check system used in Australia. This study demonstrates that anonymous online marketplaces have thus far been under-utilised in the study of the fraudulent document market, and that to properly understand the illicit market for fraudulent documents and personal information both the online and physical sides of the market should be considered. This information, if properly utilised, can improve the current understanding of this persistent criminal environment, building on previous research and assisting policymakers in making informed decisions.
自2011年丝绸之路出现以来，尽管执法部门竭尽全力，匿名在线市场仍在持续增长。虽然这些一直存在的市场充斥着非法毒品及相关用具，但欺诈性身份证件的销售和分销仍然是一个长期存在的问题，这些物品在明网和暗网都持续出现待售状态。虽然欺诈性澳大利亚文件是一些最受欢迎的待售产品，但关于澳大利亚犯罪市场及其在匿名在线市场中的地位仍有许多未知之处。鉴于此前通过研究这些市场来了解非法毒品贸易取得了成功，这项工作研究了两个市场，以了解澳大利亚文件欺诈在这个数字生态系统中的位置。2020年至2021年期间，对两个匿名在线市场进行了爬网，即白宫市场（WHM）和帝国市场。提取并检查了这些数据，以确定国际在线市场以及专门针对澳大利亚文件的在线市场中的趋势，这两个市场在在线领域都相对未得到充分研究。为了帮助阐明市场的特征，研究了待售文件的类型、供需趋势、贩运流向以及与供应商相关的趋势（如产品多样化和在不同市场的存在情况）。每个市场都单独进行了研究，然后在可能的情况下进行比较，以更全面地了解在线欺诈文件市场，特别关注澳大利亚产品。结果表明，虽然市场中欺诈文件部分规模较小，但种类多样，有许多不同的与身份相关的产品待售，最常见的是来自美国和澳大利亚的驾驶执照，数字文件在整个市场中占主导地位。总体而言，最受欢迎的美国产品是那些可用于便利身份欺诈的产品，最受欢迎的澳大利亚产品是驾驶执照和身份证包，这可能与澳大利亚使用的100分身份核查系统有关。这项研究表明，匿名在线市场在欺诈文件市场的研究中迄今未得到充分利用，要正确理解欺诈文件和个人信息的非法市场，应同时考虑市场的在线和实体方面。如果妥善利用这些信息，可以在先前研究的基础上，增进对这一持续存在的犯罪环境的当前理解，并协助政策制定者做出明智决策。
