The Darkest Web

A kingpin willing to murder to protect his dark web drug empire. A corrupt government official determined to avoid exposure. The death of a dark web drugs czar in mysterious circumstances in a Bangkok jail cell, just as the author arrives there. A death in Minnesota leads detectives into the world of dark web murder-for-hire where hundreds of thousands of dollars in Bitcoin is paid to arrange killings, beatings, and rapes. Meanwhile, the owner of the most successful hitman website in history is threatening the journalists who investigate his business with a visit from his operatives—and the author is at the top of his list. There's the world wide web—the internet we all know that connects us via news, email, forums, shopping, and social media. Then there's the dark web—the parallel internet accessed by only a select few. Eileen Ormsby has spent the past five years exploring every corner of the Dark Web. She has shopped on darknet markets, contributed to forums, waited in red rooms, and been threatened by hitmen on murder-for-hire sites. This book will take you into the murkiest depths of the web's dark underbelly: a place of hitmen for hire, red rooms, hurtcore sites, and markets that will sell anything a person is willing to pay for—including another person.

Eileen Ormsby is a lawyer, author, and freelance journalist.