This doesn't seem like a good idea.
Why Some Dark Web Dealers Post Photos of Their Drug Labs
The dark web drug trade is already pretty audacious. Dealers, customers, and site administrator operate fairly openly, and anyone can log onto a dark web marketplace and easily place an order for whatever drug they want.
But some brazen dark web dealers are turning that approach up a notch. In the last few days, two vendors have publicly shared what appear to be images from their laboratories or workspaces, potentially exposing identifying details in the process.
On Thursday, Xanax vendor AlpraKing uploaded a series of photos allegedly of their operation.
"This was v4.0. Over 10 million pills were produced there over the course of 9 months," someone in control of the AlpraKing Reddit account wrote. (Helpfully, AlpraKing's thread is entitled "My Lab").
"This was v4.0. Over 10 million pills were produced there over the course of 9 months," AlpraKing writes on Reddit.
Read more: Inside a Dark Web Pill Lab
The reason for uploading these pictures?
"I'd say fan-service. Any publicity is good publicity," AlpraKing told Motherboard in an online message.
"It may seem like a bad choice for a drug dealer, but not so long ago, shipping drugs via mail seemed like a bad choice for a drug dealer as well," AlpraKing continued. "The way things are progressing, you need to operate a drug DNM [darknet market] company the same way you would operating [sic] a legit company. That means more visibility and discussion = more sales."
At first glance, the photos may seem innocuous. There's a shelf of tools and boxes, another of a pile of white bags, and a third of a spacious room containing what looks like pill pressing machines.
But as the independent researcher known as La Moustache pointed out on Twitter, there could be some helpful information for investigators included in these pictures.
"For maximum #OPSEC fail take and post pics of your drug paraphernalia deliveries with Fedex tracking number on them," La Moustache tweeted on Thursday, pointing to a number scribbled on a box in one of the photos, and a screenshot from the FedEx site seemingly showing a successful delivery associated with that identity number.