Silk Road resurfaces

The famous underground boutique Silk Road has resurfaced in its Silk Road v3.0 version, allowing you to buy cannabis and just about anything else you can imagine on the dark web.

The first version of Silk Road was launched in 2011. At the time, it was known as one of the most reliable places to buy illegal drugs and other black market products from vendors all over the world.

Silk Road maintained its secret existence by staying in the dark web, a part of the Internet not indexed by search engines and requiring special software to access it (Tor, for example).

By 2012, the site was generating several million dollars in transactions, until it collapsed in 2013. The FBI arrested Silk Road's creator, Roos Ulbricht, and sentenced him to two life sentences, plus 30 years (just in case).

Silk Road v3 is announced as being very similar to previous versions. The new site is already packed with sellers of cannabis, but also other drugs such as heroin, methamphetamine and cocaine. There are also Paypal and Netflix accounts.

«We're the dark net's best-known and most resilient marketplace, one of the oldest and most secure to have stood the test of time,» says the new site. «You'll find everything you want here. Please respect our rules and observe basic security practices while you are here.».

Despite this, there are strong suspicions that Silk Road v3.0 could be a trap. In late 2015, a different version of Silk Road - called Silk Road Reloaded - had mysteriously disappeared. At the time, rumors indicated that the site had been piloted by the FBI.

And recent feedback from Silk Road v3 users reports that some have had problems receiving the products they purchased.

Of course, if cannabis were legal, far fewer people would need to buy from the black market on platforms like Silk Road. Entrepreneurs in the legal cannabis industry are developing similar businesses where patients can buy their cannabis online and have it delivered to their door.